


Green Ninja

by Mattecat



Category: The LEGO Movie (2014), The LEGO Ninjago Movie (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-05 05:37:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 38,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12788166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mattecat/pseuds/Mattecat
Summary: When they help a young boy named Lloyd they find alone in the middle of the night, Heidi and Brett Cop are pushed into the Master Builder underground, where they attempt to uncover the truth about their sons' job with President Business.An AU that assumes a number of things: that the LEGO Movies all take place in the same universe, that they were released in chronological order, and that that would make Lloyd "Green Ninja" Garmadon twelve or so years old in his appearance in the LEGO Movie. Then I stuck the cops' parents in there because I have no self control.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> what's up here's what I've been working on for like a few weeks now. I told myself I wouldn't post it until it's done but I crave validation and it's almost 10k words already and I wanted to write a ninjago fic and I would die for lloyd garmadon
> 
> so yeah! this is a different alternate universe than my piece of rebellion/special!gcbc verse, so no need to read any of my other lego fics to understand this one. if you have already read them, this'll just have some Cool Bonus Lore about my elaborate background headcanons for GCBC and their parents.
> 
> uhhh that's all! sorry for starting Yet Another new chaptered fic! please comment if you enjoyed it! thank you!

The child can't be much older than twelve, thirteen at most. He's suspicious of them, as kids should be of strangers, but he's also shivering and filthy, alone on the street in the middle of the night, and eventually, Brett and Heidi Cop are able to coax him into their house with the promise of a warm dinner.

Lloyd gives them his name through mouthfuls of lasagna, wearing an oversized sweatshirt Heidi found in the back of the coat closet while the hoodie he was wearing is put through the wash. It's only once he's finished his second serving that Heidi clears her throat. "Lloyd, dearie, do you need us to call someone for you?"

"No thank you," he says. "Um, my mom knows I'm okay. I called her already."

He's polite to the point that it's almost unbearable. Heidi is reminded of a different child, ten years old with bruises on his arms, trying to assure her that he just fell down the stairs, it was an accident, they didn't mean to hurt him, he was just _bad_ –

"You should let her know where you are," Heidi says with a smile. "We can drive you home if you need a ride."

"No thank you, it's pretty far." Lloyd stands up, and Heidi realizes she's pushed too far. "Thanks for the food, Miss, Mister, um, I should go now."

Brett quickly steps in. "if it's that far, you should rest a while before leaving on your own," he says. "We have a spare bed, if you want.

Lloyd hesitates. "Our children moved out a long time ago," Heidi says. "I'm sure they won't mind letting you stay in their room for the night."

"Are you sure it's okay?" Lloyd asks.

"Of course, dearie, it's no trouble."

The bed has sheets and a blanket on it already, and Heidi makes sure to grab extra pillows. Once Lloyd is sound asleep, she and Brett sit at the kitchen table and talk in hushed voices.

"I've checked the missing child reports," Brett says, and Heidi can tell he's going into "work mode," treating the situation like any of the cases he was assigned as a police officer. "Least not in the area, but civilians don't get access to the worlds past Bricksburg. Not since the walls went up."

Heidi taps her fingers on the table. "Could be that his parents haven't noticed he's missing. If he left late enough…"

"You think he's a runaway?"

"What else could he be? What I'm wondering is if he's a kid going on an adventure who got lost, or if he was serious about getting away." Heidi frowns. "Didn't see any bruises under that hoodie, but abuse isn't always physical."

The question weighing on them both is if they should call the police. Their sons spoke highly of the robots that made up the Bricksburg police force, and Heidi has no reason to doubt them, but even the best intentions can be misguided. She would never forgive herself if she sent Lloyd back into an abusive home.

They're still discussing the issue when there's a hard knock on the door.

"Visitors at this hour?" Brett says, his voice tense.

Heidi's frown deepens. "Dear, you check on Lloyd. I'll see who's at the door."

* * *

"I'm sorry to bother you, Miss Cop," the robot says, polite as President Business himself. Heidi casts a careful look at the many, _many_ other robots on their driveway, on their lawn, all in full tactical gear. Vests proclaiming their owners as the Super Secret Police. "We wanted to warn you of a wanted Master Builder seen in this area."

"Oh, is that all?" Heidi smiles, her eyes flicking to the gun at the robot's waist. She shouldn't be suspicious, not really, but the police showing up right after they found Lloyd is putting her on edge. "Is that all you needed to tell us? I know you robots don't need to sleep, but unfortunately, us humans do, and it's very late."

"Please report any signs of suspicious activity," the robot says, and they turn around to leave. All the robots shuffle away, filing back into the police cars. Heidi watches them drive down towards the next house on the street before she closes the door.

Brett meets her in the hallway. "The knock woke him up," he says. "He said he was fine, but he seemed a little nervous. Who was it?"

"The police wanted me to know there was a Master Builder in the area," Heidi says. "I told them I hadn't seen –"

The noise sounds very much like a window slamming shut. Brett and Heidi take a moment to process the sound before they dart back towards the room. "Lloyd?" Heidi calls out as she opens the door – but of course, he's already gone.

* * *

His mom thinks he's staying the night at Jay's house. Jay's parents don't actually want their son hanging out with the son of Lord Garmadon, and would never let him stay over. Lloyd thinks he'll be home soon enough that Mom won't worry, and hopefully she won't call Jay's house and realize he was never there.

The countryside is big, but Lloyd is fast, and he's trying to run through the fields so cars can't follow him. The old couple had seemed nice, but they were just regular people. Of course they would report Master Builders to the Octan 'bots.

Best to leave and run as far as he could.

Running across a road, he spots the wall in the distance. Lloyd is exhausted. He can hear police sirens and he's starting to think he might have to fight his way to the secret tunnel. He swallows his fear and keeps running. He's so _close,_ he can make it, he's almost there –

"Stand down, Green Ninja!"

The countryside is a really bad place for a Master Builder to get caught in, Lloyd thinks, seeing the police cars pull up on the road between him and the wall. There's nothing he can build with. He skids to a stop and grits his teeth. Master Wu always told him to look at every possibility and try new ways of thinking, but the countryside is just _grass._

"Surrender yourself," the head robot says through a megaphone. The robots are tough, but he's already beaten up a bunch of them. He can fight a few more, right? Or maybe a lot more, he thinks, seeing how many there really are. He should have taken something from the house, but he heard the lady say that the police were there and he got scared and he's just hoping Bad Cop won't show up, because he's never seen him but all the other Master Builders say he's really mean.

"We have you surrounded, Green Ninja," the head robot continues. They don't, not really. The robots are all mostly on the road, none of them on the field where he is, but they have guns pointed at him. Lloyd is starting to wonder if there's anything he can build with grass. Probably not.

One of the robots makes a staticky noise, almost like it's clearing its throat. "There's a car coming," it says.

There's a rundown tractor not too far from him. Lloyd didn't see it at first, it's so dark out. If the robots were distracted…

"Didn't we put up the barricades?"

"They drove right through them."

"Well, make sure they don't –"

Lloyd takes off towards the tractor.

The robots start shooting. Lloyd dives down into the grass and crawls as fast as he can, lasers flying over his head. He hears someone running up behind him – a kick disarms the robot, and now he's the one with a gun. His hands are shaking, and he's not nearly as good with a gun as he is with a sword, but at this close range – he blasts the robot apart and manages to get to the tractor before they can stop him.

A loud _honk_ spooks them all. Lloyd ducks behind the tractor and listens, his heart pounding.

"Miss, this is Super Secret Police business –"

" _What_ are you _doing?!_ " It's the old lady who gave him lasagna, Lloyd realizes. She sounds furious, worse than he's ever heard his mom sound.

"Please don't interfere –"

"You are shooting at a _child!_ "

"This is a dangerous Master Builder –"

"What harm could he possibly pose to you?" That's the man's voice, much calmer than the lady sounds, but still very angry. Lloyd takes a deep breath.

"You know what Master Builders are capable of –"

"A child! A _child!_ Unbelievable! And you're supposed to be protecting Bricksburg?!"

Lloyd creeps to the side of the tractor and peers out. The robots are still pointing their guns at his hiding place, but they seem distracted, glancing at the furious old lady shouting at them.

He crawls out. Nice and stealthy. Like a ninja, which he _is_ –

Except he's never been good at staying hidden.

"I see him!" cries one of the robots, and he feels the burning pain in his leg a moment before he can process the sound of the laser firing. He screams, clutching his leg and dropping his gun.

The old lady completely loses herself in fury. " _Put down your guns, you monsters!_ " she screams, and they stop shooting. Lloyd can feel tears running down his cheeks, and when he hears someone running up to him, he lashes out before he can tell who it is.

"It's okay, sonny, it's okay." The man blocks his punch effortlessly. Lloyd sobs and tries to scoot himself backwards, dragging his leg. "It's okay. We're not going to let them hurt you any further."

He kicks and yells, even as the man picks him up. "Heidi, let's go," the man says. "We got to get his leg taken care of."

"We can't let you leave!" one of the robots says. "This boy is –"

"I don't care if he's a Master Builder!" the lady – Heidi – shouts. "You _shot_ an _unarmed child!_ "

The head robot turns away to another robot. "Call Bad Cop," it says, and the name chills Lloyd to the bone. No, no, he's not gonna be able to beat Bad Cop in a fight, not with a hurt leg –

Hearing Bad Cop's name isn't nearly as terrifying as what Heidi says next.

"That's right," she says. "Call our son! See what he thinks of your actions! We raised him _right,_ and you'll be lucky to be in one piece when he's done reprimanding you!"

"Heidi, we need to go."

The man carries Lloyd to the car. Lloyd is still crying, He's trying not to, but his leg hurts so much that it's hard. The man is trying to hold him without hurting him, and he can't suppress a whimper as he's laid down in the back seat. "Sorry," the man says. "Heidi, can you –"

"Can you drive, Brett?" Heidi calls over he shoulder, still confronting the robots. "I don't trust myself with a car when I'm this angry."

"Alright. We should get going."

Brett closes the door and gets in the driver's seat. Moments later, Heidi slides into the back seat with Lloyd. He pushes himself away from her, backing up against the car door.

"Oh no, honey," she says. "Don't worry, you're safe now."

Lloyd just shakes his head, but what can he do? His leg really, really hurts, he can't run or jump like this. He doesn't even think he can walk. So he lies there helplessly as the car is started and they drive away.

He realizes a moment later that this old couple just saved his life, probably.

"Can you call your mom for me, dearie?" Heidi says. "I want her to know where you are."

Lloyd shakes his head again. "She – she doesn't know – I don't wanna tell her."

"She's probably worried sick about you, being out this late."

"It's okay. I told her I was at Jay's house." Lloyd sniffles. "She doesn't know about – about this stuff. I don't want her to freak out."

"Well," Heidi says after a moment's pause. "I can understand that. I'm freaking out, and you're not even my child."

He can't trust them. These are _Bad Cop's parents,_ and even if they seem like they don't know anything, they're probably taking him straight to Lord Business' tower. Never mind that they just stopped the robots from taking him to Lord Business' tower –

"Dear, can I ask you something?"

Lloyd swallows hard. "Um…"

Heidi averts her gaze for a moment. "Can you tell me why the police was shooting at you? I know they said you were a Master Builder, but…"

Lloyd doesn't say anything at first. Finally, just as Heidi opens her mouth to ask again, he speaks up. "Don't you know?"

"We thought we did," she responds, "and then we watched the police shoot at a child. Pretend we don't know anything, and tell us everything you know."

He can't trust them he can't trust them he can't trust them –

"Where are you taking me?" he squeaks out.

"To the hospital, dear. You need to get that leg treated."

"No!" Lloyd shouts. "You – you can't! They'll report me!"

"Report you for what? You haven't done anything wrong."

"I'm – I'm on the Master Builder registry." Lloyd can feel tears starting to well up again. "My mom put me on there, she didn't know – they'll look up my name and they'll find out I'm a Master Builder and then they'll report me."

Heidi is quiet for a moment. "Okay," she says. "Okay. We won't go to the hospital. Do you know anywhere you can get help that won't report you?"

"Yeah," says Lloyd. "Yeah. Um, the other Master Builders probably –"

He sees Heidi tense, and he realizes he's said too much. "I mean, um, um –"

"Are you sure the other Master Builders can help?" Brett says from the front, interrupting Lloyd's stammering.

Lloyd hesitates before nodding. "But – you can't let anyone know, okay? Especially – especially not –" He digs his hand into the car seat. "– especially not Bad Cop."

Both of them are silent. Lloyd wipes his face on his sleeve and meets Heidi's gaze.

"Okay," Heidi says. "Do you know where to go?"

Lloyd has to think about it. "Um, we have to leave Bricksburg. I was trying to get to the tunnel, but – the robots are gonna be watching it there…"

"A tunnel?"

"Yeah, through the wall. I don't know where all of them are. There's one that goes to the Old West, but it's all the way across the city…"

"Is there an easier one to get to?"

"Not really…"

"Then that's where we're going," Heidi says. "Tell us how to get there."

Lloyd does, his voice shaking. He knows he can't trust them, but he doesn't have a lot of other options, and if they were going to take him to Bad Cop – well, there's nothing he could do to stop him. He'll get them to drop him off at the tunnel and then he'll leave.

* * *

Lloyd wakes up with a jolt when Heidi nudges him. "We're here," she says. Lloyd props himself up enough to see out the window, half-expecting to see the police station. But no, the car is parked beside the city limits, and he recognizes the landmarks around them.

"Yeah," he says, still groggy from sleep. "This is the spot."

"I don't see a tunnel," Brett comments, still sitting in the driver's seat, having made no move to exit. "Guess it's not supposed to be easily found."

"Yeah." Lloyd sits up in his seat and winces at the pain in his leg. It doesn't hurt as much as before, but it's still pretty bad. "I think I can walk okay," he says.

"You sure? I don't want you getting any more hurt."

"I'm sure. I gotta build something to get through the tunnel, anyway."

"Build something?" Heidi's voice has an edge to it. Lloyd winces.

"Yeah," he says. "Um, you can't really walk through the tunnel, so I gotta build something to get through. It's, um, not supposed to be used when you're not a Master Builder."

He shifts around to open the door, being careful of his leg. There's a brief moment of panic when it won't open before he hears the car unlock and tries again, successfully this time. His leg hurts really bad when he tries to put weight on it, and he yelps in pain.

Brett quickly gets out and steps towards him, and Lloyd can hear Heidi getting out of the car on the other side. "I'm okay!" he says quickly, and stands up on one leg, one hand against the car for balance. "I'll be okay. I'm just gonna…"

He can see what he needs already. A flying machine is the easiest way to get through the tunnel; Lloyd's heard that some Master Builders can get through with just a motorcycle and cool stunts, but he's not gonna try to do that with a busted leg. He limps over to the closest cluster of bricks before Heidi or Brett can stop him and gets to work.

It takes longer than usual, but building is second nature to him by now. The pieces click together easily, and there's nobody in the street this late at night. He flips the pieces up and gets them to click together in midair, knocking down the streetlight and giving him more bricks from that – there's a grin on his face when he's done, and he hops up into the cockpit and sees Heidi and Brett staring at him with wide eyes.

"Oh," he says, and his grin vanishes. "Um… thanks for helping me. Bye."

Heidi blinks. "You're _leaving?_ By yourself?"

"Yeah, I mean – you're not Master Builders, and…" _I don't trust you._ "…I don't wanna get you in trouble."

"You're still hurt, Lloyd," Brett points out. "We can't let you go off on your own like this."

"I'll be okay. You should go before anyone sees you." Now that he's done building, he's aware that knocking down the streetlight probably made a lot of noise. He needs to leave, too.

"You're just a kid!" says Heidi.

Lloyd feels anger flare up inside him. "I'm not a kid," he snaps. "I can take care of myself."

"But you shouldn't _have_ to!" Heidi glances around at the buildings around them and lowers her voice. "You shouldn't have to be all on your own," she says. "That's not fair. You should spend your childhood doing – kid things, not running from the police."

 _That's not fair._ Lloyd has always known it wasn't fair, that he shouldn't be blamed for having an evil dad, or hunted down just 'cause some old president is scared of his powers, but to hear someone else say it…

"I'll be honest with you, Lloyd," Heidi says. "Our sons are the heads of the Super Secret Police. They've always told us that they're doing good things, that they're protecting the universe, and then I watched the robots they're supposed to be in charge of shoot a child." She takes a deep breath. "I always knew they weren't telling us everything," she continues. "I didn't think I had any reason to worry, but it's clear now that something is wrong with the world, and if our children have anything to do with it, I want to find out what."

"Okay," Lloyd says. "Um, I don't know a lot about what's going on, but… I can take you to the wizard, and he can tell you more. I, um…"

He has to move some bricks around to expand the cockpit enough for three people, and it's still pretty cramped, but Heidi and Brett are able to squeeze themselves in. "Okay," Lloyd says. "Let's go."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy day to eat bad turkey and get into political debates every body. the third chapter is finished too but I wanna space out the updates a bit

Heidi kept glancing back at where they had left the car, tucked into an alley. Brett decided to take the keys with him, just to make it harder for anyone to steal the car. The police would find it soon enough – hopefully just the robot police. Heidi doesn't want to think about what their children would think if they found their car parked at the city limits. She thinks about it anyway, watching the car until Lloyd steers them into the tunnel and the doors close behind them.

The tunnel walls are a hideous hodgepodge of colors and bits of machinery that she can see no rhyme or reason to. It's unsettling. She reaches out and squeezes Brett's hand, comforted by his warmth.

Lloyd dives down, and then they appear out in the bright sun.

The sudden shift from night to day is disorienting. Heidi blinks and shakes her head. "Where are we?" she asks.

"The Old West," Lloyd says. "I told you, that's where the tunnel leads."

Heidi squints in the brightness, making out a desert landscape beneath them. She can see sand, cactuses, and what bears a frightening resemblance to a skeleton of some animal. "But – why is it daytime?"

"Something with timezones, I think? Um…" Lloyd hums to himself as he lands the machine, piloting very well for someone not yet old enough to have a driver's license. "It's something when the walls went up, not every place has the same time, because the sun doesn't hit them all the same way."

"I know what timezones are, but if Bricksburg is right next to this place, it doesn't make sense that they're so different."

Lloyd lands with a soft _bump._ "I don't really get it," he says. "I asked the wizard once, but he didn't really answer, so I don't think he knows either."

They all climb out. Lloyd kicks the machine with his good leg and it crumbles, the bricks all disconnecting and falling in a heap. Heidi jumps back with a gasp. "What are you doing?"

"Huh?" Lloyd frowns. "We can't take it with us, and if anyone sees this thing lying around, they'll report it, and then the Super Secret Police will investigate here and we'll get in trouble and the wizard will get mad at us. Um, we have to get disguises, too."

"You just… have to destroy it?"

"It's not destroyed. I can rebuild it whenever, if I have the right parts." Lloyd nudges a brick that landed near him. "We gotta hide these ones, though. Can you help me bury them?"

Heidi hesitates, but Brett is already moving, picking up one of the rods from what was once a flying machine and digging in the sandy ground with it. Heidi only steps in when Lloyd starts limping over.

"We'll dig," she says firmly. "You rest your leg."

Lloyd scowls at her. "You're not my mom."

"And wouldn't your mother say the same thing?"

He scrunches up his face. "My mom would probably freak out. But she's not here, so it doesn't –"

"Lloyd, go sit and rest."

Lloyd looks prepared to argue further, but abruptly, his face falls and he looks down. "Okay," he mutters, and hobbles over to a rock where he plants himself down with his back to her. Heidi stares at him for a long moment before joining her husband in burying the bricks.

It's not too hard to pile sand over the remains of the machine, and when they're done, Brett claps his hands together and turns to Lloyd, who hasn't moved from his rock. "You said something about disguises?" he asks. "How do we get those?"

"You shouldn't've come with me," Lloyd says.

"Sorry?"

Lloyd sniffs and rubs his eyes, still facing away from them. "We're not supposed to trust regular people and we're definitely not supposed to take them to different worlds but I – I was just scared and now we have to get disguises and if we mess up we'll be reported and we'll all be in trouble and I dunno what's gonna happen and I – I –" He chokes back a sob. "I wanna go home, I want my mom, and I want – I want –"

Heidi desperately wants to hug him, but if he doesn't trust her, she has a feeling the gesture wouldn't be taken well. She sits down next to him instead. Lloyd hugs himself and turns further away.

"I know I don't know what's going on," she says. "And I know… you don't really need our help. You didn't have to bring us with you."

"What's your point?" Lloyd says.

"I just wanted to thank you for bringing us anyway." She smiles. "If you ever get tired of us, you can ask us to leave and we'll find our own way home."

Lloyd takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay."

"So how do we get disguises?" Heidi asks.

"We gotta steal them."

"Excuse me?"

* * *

Lloyd ends up stealing the disguises himself, while Heidi and Brett crouch behind a rock. Once they all put on the outfits over their regular clothes, they climb over the fence that marked the town's limits, and slip into the tavern.

"Are you sure the wizard's here?" Brett whispers to Lloyd, keeping his voice so low as to be barely audible through the commotion.

Lloyd nods. "Yeah. He's over by the piano."

Brett looks in the direction they're going to see an old man in a conspicuous robe banging out a cheerful tune. He frowns. "You're sure –"

"Yeah. Just stay quiet."

Brett glances behind him to make sure Heidi is keeping up – she isn't used to the dress, and he knows she's uncomfortable – and follows Lloyd to the piano. "Hey," Lloyd whispers. "Wizard guy –"

"I don't know anyone with that profession," the man responds. "Not me, either."

Brett and Heidi exchange nervous glances.

Lloyd takes a deep breath. "It's, uh, Lloyd."

"Who?"

"You know me!"

"I know a lot of Lloyds," says the man, still playing piano without missing a note. Brett is starting to feel like the crowd is closing in on them, though there is no indication that they had been noticed.

"Oh, come on!" 

"Sorry, you're going to have to be more specific."

"Lloyd _Garmadon,_ okay? That's me!"

The man _hmm_ s thoughtfully. "Oh!" he says suddenly. "You're the kid with the evil dad!"

Lloyd flinches. "Uh, I mean –"

"Yeah! Lloyd Garmadon, son of the conquering warlord, _Lord_ Garmadon, the guy who –"

"Yes! Yes! That's me! Shut up!"

The man turns around abruptly, cutting off the piano music and revealing wide, cloudy eyes that Brett is fairly certain he can not see out of. "Alright, kid," he says. "Meet me upstairs in five seconds."

"Uh," says Brett, but the man is already slowly hobbling away, picking up a staff with a large green jewel on the end of it as he walks. Lloyd nods and limps off in an entirely different direction; what can Brett and Heidi do but follow him?

* * *

"It's this room," Lloyd says, and he pushes open the door without even knocking. "Hey, wizard guy –"

"Hang on," comes the response before they crossed the threshold. "I hear three sets of footsteps. And one of them is limping."

"Um, I brought friends. And I got shot in the leg."

The man appears in the opening, squinting in their general direction and stopping Lloyd from opening the door further. "Are these friends trustworthy?"

"Yeah," says Lloyd. "I mean, they gave me food and yelled at the robots who shot me. And, um, maybe saved me from getting caught." He looks down and twists his hands in his sweatshirt, the same one Brett loaned him when he first showed up at their house. "They're not Master Builders, but, um, I think they… I think we can trust them. They wanna know more about what Business is doing, and I said you could tell them."

"Well, you weren't wrong. I definitely know a lot about Business." He puts his hand to his chin and looks thoughtful for a moment. "Why don't you all come inside before someone sees you."

He disappears back behind the door. Lloyd glances back at Brett and Heidi, then the three of them file inside, closing the door behind them.

The room is a cacophony of color, with strange artifacts covering every surface. Brett feels Heidi move closer to him, brushing against his shoulder. Somehow, even with only the four of them, the room is even more claustrophobic than the crowded tavern. Lloyd stares around with wide eyes. "Whoa," he says. "I've never been in here before! It's really cool!"

"It's really something," Heidi comments.

"Don't be rude," Brett muttters.

"So!" the man says from above them – somehow, he's standing upside-down on the ceiling. "Who are you trustworthy people, anyway?"

Brett clears his throat. "My name's Brett. This is my wife, Heidi –"

"Heidi _Cop,_ " she says firmly. "We're Brett and Heidi Cop."

Lloyd winces. The man doesn't seem bothered.

"That's certainly interesting," he says. "You can call me Vitruvius."

"Lloyd needs his leg taken care of," Heidi says before Brett can get any more words out. "He said you would be able to help him. Is that true?"

"Of course," Vitruvius says. "I'm no expert, but I can perform basic healing. Sit down over there."

He points at a spot of the room where there is no chair. Lloyd obediently limps over and sits down on the floor. Vitruvius goes to his side and starts mumbling something incomprehensible.

Lloyd interrupts him. "Are you doing magic on my leg?"

"Yep," Vitruvius says, and goes back to the mumbling.

"Cool."

Heidi takes off her disguise in the meantime, piling it haphazardly in a corner. Brett picks at his shirt and wonders if he could take his off, too.

"Okay," Vitruvius says. "Should be good now, but it'll probably still hurt if you try and walk on it right away. Just stay put for a few minutes." He turns towards the wall. "So, what do you two need to know about Business?"

"Everything," Heidi says immediately. Vitruvius corrects himself and turns in the direction of her voice.

"We really don't know anything," Brett says. "At least, it'd probably be best to assume we don't. We know nothing about Master Builders, nothing about President Business –"

"Lord Business," Vitruvius corrects.

"Exactly!" says Heidi. "We don't know why people are calling him that, or why his robots shot at a child, or what our sons have been doing all this time! We need to know everything!"

"That's easy enough." Vitruvius taps his staff on the ground a few times. "Lord Business wants to end the universe as we know it, using a powerful super-weapon called the Kragle. Master Builders are the greatest threat to his plan of keeping everything in its place, so he hired Bad Cop to hunt them down and lock them up. We went into hiding and have been searching for the Piece of Resistance, the only thing that can stop the Kragle, but we haven't found it yet. Moving on…"

" _What?!_ "

Vitruvius raises an eyebrow. "Is there a problem?"

"Business hired _our sons_ to _lock people up?!_ " Heidi shakes her head. "That's not – they're not –"

"Oh, so you _are_ related! I thought so." Vitruvius sounds pleased, which Brett thinks is entirely inappropriate for the situation. "Now, I can understand this is hard for you –

Heidi grits her teeth. "We raised him – raised them _both_ better than that! Something isn't right about any of this! We should – I need to –"

She pulls out her phone. Brett shouts, "Heidi, don't!" and grabs her arm before she can call.

"Hold on," says Vitruvius, sounding as calm as ever while Lloyd stares at them with his eyes wide in horror. "I know this is a difficult situation, but there's no need to report me just yet."

"I wasn't going to report you!" Heidi wrenches her arm out of Brett's grip, though she doesn't attempt to call again. "I'm not going to do that! Now that I know what that means!"

"Heidi, we can't call them here," Brett says. "Worst case scenario, they'll know where the call is coming from, and we'll have good as reported everyone here."

"I'm actually the only Master Builder in the Old West," Vitruvius says. "Not counting Garmadon here, of course."

"Don't call me that!" Lloyd snaps. "My name's _Lloyd._ "

Heidi deflates, the anger leaving her body. Brett steps forward to catch her as she falls into his arms and starts sobbing. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Lloyd and Vitruvius looking uncomfortable, but they don't say anything while Heidi cries.

* * *

They leave soon after that. Lloyd's leg seems fine now; he's not limping anymore as they exit the tavern and come out onto the street.

Heidi keeps picking at her disguise; she isn't a dress woman, not by far. Skirts are already pushing it. She doesn't think she'd be recognizable like this, but as they're approaching the town exit, she can hear someone –

"Ma! Pa! Wait! What are you doing here?!"

The right thing to do, the thing that wouldn't blow their cover, would be to ignore the voice and keep going, as if he couldn't possibly be referring to them. But Heidi whirls around, staring at the person running up to them, dressed in his full uniform, clearly out of breath.

Their son stops in front of them, his round glasses askew on his face. Heidi glances behind her and realizes that Lloyd has bolted. Brett steps to her side and puts a hand on her shoulder.

"What are you doing here?" he repeats. "We were so worried when you weren't at the house! We thought something had happened, and we – we –"

He trails off as Heidi affixes him with a glare.

"Gilligan Malcolm Cop," she says, "what have you been up to all this time?"

"Looking for you!" Gilligan says. "We came all this way –"

"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it. What, exactly, does your job with Business entail?"

Gilligan winces, and his face spins around to their other son. He's clearly trying to keep a straight face, but even behind his sunglasses, Heidi can tell he's uncomfortable. She keeps the same glare on her face while he struggles to find words.

"It's – it's protecting people," he starts. Heidi doesn't let him finish.

"Malcolm Gilligan Cop –"

"Please don't do the full names for both of us –"

"– can you explain to me how hunting down and shooting at a child is protecting _anyone?_ "

Malcolm turns just slightly to look at Brett, who slowly shakes his head. Heidi taps her foot as she waits for an answer.

"Listen," says Malcolm, "we can talk about this back home."

"Oh no, I think this is the perfect time to have this conversation."

"It's really not."

"So you want us to go back to our house and forget everything we just saw? Is that right, Bad Cop?"

Malcolm flinches, and Brett squeezes Heidi's shoulder. Heidi sighs.

"You know, dear," she says, "when you first started yourselves Good Cop and Bad Cop… it was cute. Taking your parents' old nicknames. I didn't mind when you started going by them more often. But when I hear those robots talking about you, right after shooting a child in the leg – do you know what I think?"

Malcolm doesn't answer. Heidi continues. "I think, 'that's not our sons.' We raised you better than that."

"Ma, can we _please_ talk about this later?" Malcolm says. "It's not safe for you here."

"We've been quite fine on our own –"

"You need to go home. Pa –"

"We'll find our own way home, son," Brett says sternly.

Malcolm shakes his head. "We need to escort you. You don't understand –"

"What," Heidi says, "are you arresting us?"

"No! No, Ma, we just –" Malcolm grits his teeth. "Do you have any idea what Business will do if he finds out you've been here?!"

Slowly, Heidi starts putting the pieces together. She doesn't say anything right away, standing there in silence while Malcolm continues. "You know you're not allowed past the city limits – we're not arresting you, but we don't want to _have_ to, okay?"

"What has he done to you?"

"Sorry, what –"

"Malcolm," Heidi says. "Malcolm, Gilligan – what has Lord Business done to you?"

Malcolm jerks his head back. "Where did you learn that name?"

"Has he threatened us? Has he threatened _you?_ Has he _hurt_ you?"

Malcolm retreats, his head spinning around to Gilligan's face. "Um," Gilligan says, "there's nothing – there's nothing you need to worry about, Ma. We're fine. Everything's fine."

Even after all this time, they can't lie to her. "If he's hurt you," Heidi says, "I'll kill him myself."

Gilligan's face goes white. "Don't say that, Ma –"

Even Brett speaks up. "Threatening to kill the president is the sort of thing that gets you on watch lists, dear –"

Heidi turns to him with a glare. "Brett, I'll be surprised if we're not on all sorts of watch lists after this."

When she looks back at her children, Malcolm has reappeared. "You're not going to be on any watch lists," he says, "because you're going back home right now."

"Malcolm –"

Malcolm reaches for her arm, hesitates, and in that moment, a ninja in a green uniform tackles him to the ground.

It's Lloyd, Heidi realizes. It's obviously Lloyd. The ninja is about his height and build, in a uniform that's not quite small enough for him, and she has to stop that train of thought when Malcolm shoves him off and reaches for a gun at his waist.

"Don't!" she shouts. "Both of you, _stop!_ "

Malcolm stops. Lloyd scrambles to his feet and lunges for him again. Heidi grabs his arm and holds him back. "Stop!" she says. "We don't have to fight!"

"You don't get it!" Lloyd wrenches his arm away; she wasn't keeping a very tight grip. "This is who we're fighting! Business and Bad Cop and the Super Secret Police and everyone else!"

"He's not going to hurt you!" Before Lloyd can protest, Heidi quickly adds, "At least not while we're here."

"Ma," Malcolm starts. Brett puts a hand on his shoulder and he stops.

"I would like to think they wouldn't hurt you if we weren't here, but I'm starting to think that wouldn't be the case." She can see the hurt in Malcolm's expression. Good – he should feel bad about this! "Malcolm, Gilligan – we are _leaving._ And…" She glances at Brett for reassurance, and finds it when he nods. "…we're not going back home."

Gilligan switches back out. "Please, Ma!" he says, and he tries to take a step forward. Brett holds him back. "You need to come back! Please, we've worked so hard –"

"We are _not_ going back home," Heidi repeats. "That's our final answer. You've got a choice to make, boys."

She stares him dead in the eyes. Gilligan looks down.

Lloyd speaks up. "Um, what are you –"

"Everyone in Bricksburg knows there are consequences for associating with Master Builders," Heidi says. "So what are you going to do?"

"Mummy, Daddy, please don't –"

Gilligan cuts himself off and stares into space for a moment. He takes a deep breath, and says, "Okay," right before Malcolm switches out again. Heidi gives him the same tight-lipped stare she gave to his brother.

"In twenty minutes," Malcolm says, "We're going to make a call to Business. We're telling him that we saw a known Master Builder here, and that he got away before we could confront him."

"You don't have to make that call, you know," Brett says. Malcolm shakes his head.

"Super Secret Police won't take long to get here," he says. "You've got probably half an hour to get as far away as you can."

Heidi isn't going to cry. Not in front of them. Not in front of Lloyd, either – not again, at least. She says, "Fine," and says to Lloyd, "Tell us where to go."

It's only after they've left the town behind that Heidi can no longer keep herself together, and the most she can do is cover her face while she wails.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a shorter chapter this time; I tried adding the chunk of writing that comes after to this chapter, but it ended up being way more words than I wanted the chapter to be. oh well!
> 
> chapter four isn't actually finished yet, so it might be a while until my next update. I do have like, 5 other chaptered fics in progress lol
> 
> some notes: I'm a little uncertain about the way I'm characterizing lloyd? I figured movie!lloyd would be a lot different than his show counterpart bc of his different upbringing, so I made him much quieter & subdued. kind of uncertain about how I'm characterizing ma & pa cop too but they got like 3 lines each in the lego movie so I Do What I Want
> 
> uhh what else. get ready for Wild & Wacky Headcanons that have No Basis in Canon other than "hey did u know ma cop & edna walker have the same hairpiece, but in different colors? lego moms are the same"

They catch a ride on a train to the next world; despite the walls, there's still a need for imports and exports. Heidi manages to pull herself together by the time they pull into Pirate's Cove, wiping her eyes and jumping off the train with the others. She lands hard and has to take a moment to catch her breath, while Brett and Lloyd wait for her.

It's dark again – another magic timezone thing, Heidi assumes. Lloyd doesn't say a word until they get to the shoreline. "I hate this," he says suddenly, surprising Heidi and Brett both.

"I'm sorry," Heidi says, feeling tears threaten again.

"No, no," he says. "I meant – it sucks building here 'cause there's like, no machine parts. I can't build a motorboat or a plane or anything." He makes a face. "We gotta row it all the way to Ninjago."

"Why Ninjago?" Brett asks.

"Um, that's where I live. In Ninjago City." Lloyd looks down and kicks a rock, watching it roll down the beach, coming to a stop just in front of the surf. "I mean, um… I don't know anywhere else to bring you, and you kind of have to come with me now, I think."

"I told you," says Heidi, "whenever you get tired of us, whenever you want, you can tell us to leave and –"

"Yeah," Lloyd says. "I can't really do that, 'cause it's really hard to get back to Bricksburg from here, and I don't want you to get in trouble or anything."

"We're adults, Lloyd. We can take care of ourselves."

"I guess," he says. He starts picking up bricks, and Heidi thinks that however little she understands of the situation, of Business and Master Builders and her and Brett's sons, she knows that it's not fair. Lloyd is clearly a kid who's had to grow up too fast, too soon, and if her sons have any fault in that –

"Are you alright?" Brett asks.

Heidi takes a deep breath. "What about you?" she responds. "You've been so quiet. I know you, Brett. This can't be easy for you."

Brett shakes his head. "This isn't the time to talk about it," he says, his eyes flicking to Lloyd and back again. Heidi understands; they need to keep themselves together, so that Lloyd doesn't think he has to take care of them any more than he already does.

"Alright," she says. "I'd like to talk about it… eventually, though."

Lloyd builds a fairly ordinary boat; Heidi can definitely see Ninjago influences in its design. "Okay," he says, grabbing the paddles. "Um, we should probably go now. You can probably stay with my uncle, I think? He knows about the Master Builder stuff. I don't think he's a Master Builder, though."

"We'll think about that when we get there," Heidi says. "I don't want to make any trouble for you. If there's no convenient place to put us, I… might know someone we can stay with."

Brett and Lloyd look at her with confusion and, in Brett's case, shock. "How do you know someone in Ninjago?" Lloyd asks. "I thought you were from Bricksburg."

Heidi laughs nervously. "Well," she says, "I was actually born in Ninjago. Not the city proper, but fairly close to it. I moved to Bricksburg before the walls went up, after…" An unwanted memory of a screaming fight and dozens of missed calls resurfaces in her mind. She pushes it down as best she can. "…some things happened."

"Heidi," Brett says, "you don't have to –"

"Not the time, Brett," Heidi says. "We can talk about it later. But yes, Lloyd, I know… at least one person there."

"You're acting weird," Lloyd says. "Um, it would be easier if you had someone to stay with, though. Then I wouldn't have to make up a story about how I met you."

"Didn't you just say your uncle knows about the Master Builder stuff?" Brett asks.

"It's complicated, okay? Let's just go."

He starts pushing the boat towards the water. Brett gives Heidi another worried look, which Heidi ignores to go help Lloyd.

* * *

It's a very long way to Ninjago.

Heidi and Brett insist on doing most of the paddling, but it becomes clear after the first half hour that they're not young anymore. Brett has to physically take the paddle away from Heidi to stop her from pushing herself too far. After that, they go in shifts. Slowly, the island of Ninjago becomes visible, far off in the distance, and Heidi can make out the city on its shoreline.

Lloyd is trying to point out what he thinks is his apartment building, when a ringtone plays loudly. He jumps and nearly falls out of the boat.

"Sorry!" he says, digging through his baggy clothes and pulling out his phone. "I'll just, um – hi, Mom."

Heidi and Brett stay quiet, stop rowing, even. Lloyd looks uncomfortable, even with only his eyes showing under his ninja hood. "Yeah," he says. "Um, yeah, I had a good time. Jay and I – yeah. Um, no, they're not gonna drive me home." He glances up at the sky. The morning sun is peeking over the horizon. "Um, I probably won't be home for a while. We're gonna go over to Kai's place and play video games. I'll probably be home by lunch." He pauses. "No, Mom, it's a Saturday, I don't – I have all day tomorrow to do my homework. It's all easy, anyway. Um, yeah. I know. I'll text you. Okay. I love you too. Bye."

He hangs up and sighs. "Good thing there's reception here," he says. "Um, I should probably call Jay, too. Give me a sec."

Lloyd is significantly more relaxed during the next call. "Hey, Jay," he says. "Sorry for waking you up. Listen, if my mom asks, I stayed at your house last night, okay? Yeah. Yeah, I had Master Builder stuff. No, I didn't tell Uncle Wu, he doesn't get it – you _know_ he doesn't get it. I told her we were going to Kai's place for video games, so, um – yeah, we can do that. I'll tell you everything when I get back, okay? Everyone else, too. Yeah. Okay. I don't think my mom's gonna call your house, it's okay. Yeah. Bye."

He tucks the phone back in his clothes. "Okay," he says. "I'm done. Let's keep going – we're almost there."

"You really haven't told your mother any of this?" Brett says.

Lloyd flinches. "I told you, she'll freak out. I don't want her to know."

"What happens if you need help?" Heidi asks. "Like you did when you met us."

"I'll be okay."

"Lloyd, dearie, what would've happened if you _hadn't_ met us?"

He doesn't say anything for a moment. "I don't know," he says. "But – I can't tell her, okay? She'll freak out, and… I don't want her to worry."

"You need to tell someone," Brett says. "Maybe your uncle, maybe another Master Builder – someone who knows what you're doing and can help you if you need it."

"I told _you,_ " Lloyd says.

"And we're honored to have you trust us," Heidi says, "but at this point, we need help just as much as you do."

Lloyd frowns and says nothing.

* * *

They make it to Ninjago about half past six in the morning, according to Lloyd's phone. Lloyd's bundled up his ninja outfit and is back into his regular clothes, and while they get some strange looks from the other boaters, they're able to dock without incident.

"I'm gonna go to Kai's place," says Lloyd once they're all on dry land. "Um, do you really have someone you can stay with? If you don't –"

"Don't worry, Lloyd," Heidi says. "We'll be fine on our own for now. I would like to meet up with you later, but let's get settled in first."

"Okay. Here, I'll give you my phone number. Just, um, text me if anything happens."

"You too, dearie."

They exchange numbers and part. Heidi waves to Lloyd as he disappears into the crowd, then takes a deep breath.

"So!" she says.

"So," Brett says. "Do we really have someone to stay with?"

"Yes," Heidi says, with as much confidence as she can fake, with her heart pounding. "I just need to find out what my sister's phone number is now."

"Heidi –"

"It's probably different than it was, after – what was it, forty years?"

"Heidi, you don't have to do this."

"Brett, I refuse to burden that poor child with finding us a place to stay on top of everything else he's going through. If that means reconnecting with my sister –" Heidi grits her teeth. "– even after all she did to hurt me –"

"We could get a hotel room."

"And have our names show up on whatever's tracking our cards? You know we're criminals, now. We can't leave a trail." Heidi looks around. "Now, where's the nearest public library?"

* * *

They find her almost immediately after searching her name on the computer. "She's Walker now?" Heidi says in disbelief. "Did she marry Ed Walker? The junkyard kid?"

"That's rude."

"I mean, at school, he was the junkyard kid, because he was born in a – never mind." Heidi scrolls down the list of results. "I guess she's part of the junkyard business now. Here's their number. Of the business, anyway."

Brett puts a hand on her shoulder. "Heidi, I mean it. You don't have to do this."

"Brett, we are both too old to spend the night on the street. For all I know, she'll be delighted to see me."

It's so easy. She can call her, right now.

Not that it's a guarantee that she'll will pick up, Heidi thinks, dialing the number. It might be Ed who answers. Or they might have employees. Some secretary who answers their calls. She should be ready for someone else to answer.

So as soon as someone picks up she squeaks out, "Hi, can I speak to Edna?" before the person on the other end has a chance to answer.

There's a moment of awkward silence before a voice with a horribly familiar accent responds. "Uh… this is she?"

_I can't do this,_ Heidi thinks. She can't answer for a moment, hearing her sister's breathing on the other end. "Um… I, um…"

Deep breaths. "It's… Heidi," she says, because Edna will know her by Heidi or she won't know her at all. "I was, in the, _area,_ and, I thought –"

"Heidi?! Oh my gosh, Heidi! You sound so different! It's been years!"

Heidi winces. "It sure has been a long time." She claps a hand over her mouth when she hears her own voice, slipping back into the accent of her childhood.

Edna doesn't seem to notice. "Where are you? You have to come over! Ed and I – you remember Ed, right? He's my husband now – we're closed on Saturdays, it's no trouble – oh my goodness, you can meet my children! Well, Ivy's out right now, but you can meet Jay, and Ivy when she comes home! What brings you to Ninjago? Did you come alone?"

Finally, Heidi gets a few words in. "My husband is with me, he –"

"Your husband! You're married! Oh my goodness, you have to tell me everything! Where are you? I'll pick you up – Ed, it's my sister! It's Heidi! I can't believe it!"

Heidi gives her their location and doesn't know what to say after that. "Okay!" Edna says. "I'll be there in – forty minutes? It's a bit of a drive, we don't live in the city proper – Ed, I need your car, Ivy took mine – I'll see you soon, Heidi!"

She hangs up. Heidi puts down the phone and takes a few more deep breaths.

"Told you she'd be delighted," she says to Brett, her voice strained. "Please don't hug me," she adds, stopping him from doing just that. "I'll start crying, and – I don't need that right now. I –" She shakes her head. "She sounded so happy to hear from me, as if she doesn't even _remember_ –"

"Maybe she doesn't," Brett says. "At least, not exactly how it happened. It was a long time ago, and she was just a kid."

"She was seventeen, that's not –" Heidi cuts herself off. "It doesn't matter," she says. "She had a long, long time to apologize, and she didn't. Even if she's sorry for what happened, it doesn't mean I have to forgive her."

"I know that, but if you really plan on having us stay at her house, you're going to have to be friendly. From her perspective, you're the one who was in the area and wanted to reconnect." Brett sighs. "I told you, Heidi – you didn't have to revisit your past like this. I know there's a lot of old wounds there, and a lot of unpleasant memories."

"We'll burn that bridge when we get to it."

"Heidi…"

"If Lloyd can deal with getting shot in the leg, I can deal with getting stabbed in the back." Heidi turned away from him. "I've made my decision, and I intend to see it through."

"I know," Brett says. "But as soon as we get a moment, we need to talk about this, like you said. All of this. Lloyd, your sister, our children… this whole situation."

The last thing Heidi wants to think about is her children – but that's awful of her. Clearly, Gilligan and Malcolm are in trouble, and whatever it is – it's linked to Business, linked to the Master Builders, and she needs to stop wishing she would wake up tomorrow and be blissfully ignorant of the world.

She doesn't answer Brett. Hopefully he understands.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "carter, why do you have elaborate headcanons for ma cop, who had like 3 lines in the lego movie, and edna, who didn't even appear in the lego ninjago movie proper" I do what I want. here, I have a permit. it says, "Carter does what they want," and it's signed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller and also my mom. thanks
> 
> anyway here's the chapter

She doesn't know what Edna looks like. Heidi makes an educated guess – the middle-aged woman standing by the running car who has done her hair up in a bun the same way as Heidi, despite neither of them seeing each other for decades – and forces herself to approach her. "Edna?" she calls out hesitantly.

The woman looks at her, blinks, and breaks out in a grin. "Heidi?"

Heidi manages a weak smile in return.

"Oh my goodness! _Heidi!_ "

She's not prepared for the hug. Heidi stiffens in Edna's arms, and after one awkward moment, Edna lets go and takes a step back, laughing nervously. "Heidi, it's been so long! Where's your husband? Ed's back at the junkyard, he couldn't pull himself away from his tinkering, and I was, well, I was in a rush…"

Heidi gestures to Brett in lieu of an actual introduction. Brett steps forward for a handshake. "Pleasure to meet you, Edna," he says. "I'm Brett Cop, and –"

Edna grasps his hand with both of her own and says to Heidi, "Oh my goodness, does this mean you're Heidi Cop now? Or – did you change your name to something else?"

"No," Heidi says. "I'm Heidi Cop. And you're Walker now?"

"Yes! I know he was kind of a joke back in school, but Ed and I – well, I went to college for engineering in a different city, and I didn't expect to see anyone from home there – but there he was! How did you two meet? Oh, this is so exciting! You have to tell me everything! I don't even know what college you went to – you did go to college, right?"

Heidi nods. "Got into Harvard for Police," she says, failing to mention how poorly she did there.

"Oh! You're not just a cop in name, is that right? You need to tell me everything, I mean it. It's so nice to meet you, Brett!" Edna releases Brett's hand and beams at them. "Come on, let's get in. the car I'll get a ticket if I'm parked here too long."

Neither of them can decide fast enough which one of them should get the front, so Heidi and Brett both sit in back. Edna keeps chatting throughout the ride, telling them the story of how she met her husband. "I majored in electrical and computer engineering, same as Ed, so we had plenty of the same classes together. We were friends, but we weren't really a thing until graduation, you know? I was about to move to Metropolis for a job, and Ed, the sweet thing, he got me a job back here in the city! The walls went up a few years later, so chances are, if I had gone to Metropolis, I would've never come back – if only because it would've been too much trouble. Strange to think about, how much different my life would've been, y'know?"

"Yeah," Heidi says, only half listening.

"So where did you go?"

"Hm?"

"After Harvard for Police. Somehow I think if you had come back to Ninjago, we would've run into each other a lot sooner!"

"Oh, no," Heidi says quickly. "I was assigned in Bricksburg, my first job, and I… erm…"

"How did you and Brett meet? Were you both on the force? I haven't held a job in a while, not since Ivy was born…"

"Oh, you have kids now?" Heidi says, and mentally kicks herself. Of course Edna has kids, she said as much on the phone.

"Yep!" Edna says cheerfully. "Ivy and Jay. My daughter, Ivy, she's the oldest, and for a while, we thought she'd be our only, but one thing led to another, and we ended up adopting Jay a few years later."

"You adopted?" Heidi says in surprise.

"Yep! Just Jay, though. After I gave birth to Ivy – well, the pregnancy was a complicated one, and it would've been too risky for me to be pregnant again. So we didn't expect any more children, and then someone goes and abandons a baby in the junkyard! Who does that? So I yelled at Ed to go out and get formula, and we call the police, and then I got into a fight with them because the cops are a bunch of – sorry, no offense – and long story short, we adopted him."

"You make it sound easy," Heidi says. "It took us years before we officially adopted our children."

Edna is quiet just long enough for Heidi to regret letting slip that information.

"You have kids?! You have _kids!_ Tell me all about them! What are their names?"

Heidi hesitates, both because thinking about her sons is painful, and because she doesn't want to have to explain their situation right at this moment. "Gilligan and Malcolm," she says. "Adopted them when they were ten. Not officially until they were twelve."

"Both the same age? Are they twins?"

Oh boy. "Not… technically? They're a… unique situation." Heidi stares out the window. Is it just her imagination, or does she recognize some of the buildings? Probably her imagination. "They're adults now. Thirty-three. Ended up being police, too." Despite all her misgivings, after seeing what it was like being a police officer herself, she had supported them, told them that maybe, they would be what the police force needed – someone with a strong sense of justice, someone who wasn't afraid to do what was right. She had always seen the best in them.

Maybe she had been blind to their faults.

"Did they go to Harvard for Police like you did?" Edna asks, and Heidi blinks, pulling herself back to the present.

"Oh, no," she says. "They applied, sure, but it wasn't their top choice. They went to a local Bricksburg academy."

"That's good! Do they work in the area? They must, what with the walls… or, no, police officers get more freedom to go between the worlds, don't they? Is that how you got here?"

"What?"

"You don't live in Ninjago, right? The walls have been up for eight years now – how did you get here?"

Heidi's pulse is pounding in her ears. Edna is waiting for a response, and without her chatter, the car seems abnormally silent. Heidi doesn't know what to say – she should've gone over their story with Brett, should've come up with a story at all –

"Gilligan and Malcolm gave us a vacation," Brett says, startling Heidi out of her panic.

"Really!" Edna says. "So being an officer does come with perks!"

Brett shrugs. "They told us we had spent too long at home, been retired for so long… it was a surprise, I'll be honest with you."

"Did you pick Ninjago? Or did they pick for you? Heidi, you said you were in the area – should I take that to mean you didn't plan to see me?"

"None of this has really been planned," Heidi says. "Our sons chose Ninjago for us, and, well, we had no complaints." She stares out the window again. They're on the outskirts of the city now, they must be close to the junkyard. "And I thought… I'd been away for so long. Maybe things would be different if I… reconnected."

"And Heidi, I am so, so glad you did." Heidi can see Edna's smile in the rear view mirror. "Seeing you again, after so long – it means the world to me, it really does. Ed was an only child, and I feel like our kids are lonely, sometimes…" She pauses. "Oh my gosh, I have to tell Jay and Ivy they have cousins! Tell your sons they should come visit, too – oh my goodness, it'll be like a family reunion!"

"Yep." Heidi can't bring herself to smile.

Edna makes no comment on Heidi's lack of cheer, if she even notices – when has her sister ever noticed the harm she's done? Only when it became impossible to ignore, after Heidi had already gone. Maybe not even then; Heidi had always thought Edna only tried to call her because their parents had put her up to it. Maybe even that they had used Edna's phone, thinking that Heidi would pick up if it was from her sister.

"We're here!" Edna says brightly. "Sorry, the house is going to be a mess, I wasn't expecting any visitors. Oh well, too late now."

"You do live in a junkyard," Heidi comments, peering out the window.

Edna laughs. "Well, I try not to let that affect the actual house. Here we are!"

* * *

Edna parks the car outside the garage. When Heidi inquires about it, she says, "Oh, we never use that thing, it's so full of junk."

They all get out. Edna glances around. "Don't see my car… guess Ivy isn't back yet. I'll text her later." She raises her voice. "Ed, you out here?"

"We're inside, Edna!" a man's voice calls out through an open window. Heidi takes a deep breath.

Another, younger voice follows, much louder. "Ma! Can you drive me to Kai's place?"

The name Kai is familiar – and with a jolt, Heidi realizes that Jay's name is familiar too. Somehow, she hadn't made the connection between Lloyd's friend Jay and Edna's son Jay, but it's obvious now – Lloyd had mentioned a Kai, too.

"Jay, my sister's here!" Edna says. "That's your aunt! Stay and visit with us!"

A young boy with a messy head of hair leans out the window, sticking out most of his upper body. "But _Ma_ –"

"Get back inside before you fall and break your neck."

Jay groans, but does retreat inside. Edna sighs. "Doesn't even say hi," she says. "I promise you, he's not normally this rude."

Heidi smiles, but can't find anything to say. Brett coughs. "I'm sure he'll warm up to us," he says.

"Hopefully! He's a little shy, sometimes. It was much worse when he was younger." Edna beams at them. "Why don't we go inside?"

Heidi's heart is pounding. She has no reason to be this anxious – Edna has been nothing but friendly and kind to her and Brett. But there's all the baggage of the last time they saw each other, forty years ago, and they can't ignore it forever.

Edna leads them inside. As she stated, her house is a mess, with papers, dishes, and mechanical parts covering nearly every surface. The floor is clear, for the most part, and Heidi spots Jay flopped on the couch with his arms crossed, and – that must be Ed, fiddling with what appears to be a radio that's been taken apart, the pieces covering most of the coffee table.

"Tear yourself away, Ed," Edna says. "Do you remember Heidi? My sister? She's here with her husband!"

Ed puts down the device and stands up with a grin. "Heidi! So glad to see you!" He shakes her hand – Heidi is beyond grateful that he's not the hugging type – and shakes Brett's hand as well. "And you are…?"

"Brett," he says, returning the handshake with a firm grip. "It's nice to meet you, Ed."

"Ma, can you _please_ drive me to Kai's?" Jay says.

"Jay, please," Edna says sternly. "It's still early in the day, you can wait for an hour or two, can't you? Why don't you introduce yourself?"

Jay sighs and stands up. "Hi," he says to Heidi. "I'm Jay. Are you really my aunt?"

"Yes?" says Heidi. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Jay looks from Edna to Heidi, back and forth between them. "Okay, I guess you look similar," he says. "But Ma, you never told me you had a sister!"

"She told me," Ed says. "Well, I remember Heidi, anyhow."

Edna smiles sheepishly. "We hadn't been in contact for years and years. I didn't want to tell you and Ivy about an aunt you would never get to meet."

"Okay," says Jay, and he steps up to Heidi and sticks his hand out. "Hi, Secret Aunt Heidi, I'm Jay. Do I have secret cousins, too?"

Heidi can't help but laugh as she returns the handshake. "They're not a secret anymore, that's for sure. Though they're not here right now, so –"

"Wait, I _do_ have secret cousins?! Ma! You don't tell me anything!"

"I didn't know either, Jay!"

"So," Ed says, "do you two have a hotel in the area? Well, the city area?"

Heidi feels her heart leap up into her throat, and she can't speak for a moment. Brett saves her. "We didn't make any reservations ahead of time," he says calmly. "Probably not the smartest idea, but with the walls, it was just too much trouble. Figured we'd do our research when we got here and choose then."

"Forget that!" Edna says "We have a guest room! I mean, it's also the junk room – well, we can clear it out." She laughs. "Well, maybe that's a little too sudden. It's an option, though! Think about it!"

"We certainly will," Heidi manages to squeak out. Silently, she hopes Lloyd is having a better time than she is.

* * *

"I don't think Jay's coming," Kai says, looking up from his phone.

"What? But he said he – augh! Nya!"

Nya elbows Lloyd with a little more force than necessary and laughs. "Got you good there!"

Lloyd glares at his controller, then up at the "PLAYER TWO WINS" message on the television screen. "This game sucks, anyway. Zane, do you have any better ones?"

"Sorry," Zane says. "My dad deleted eighty-six percent of the games saved to my hard drive after I got a virus. The others are much worse."

Cole plops himself down in the seat next to Lloyd and grabs the controller from him. "Alright, my turn. Nya, you're going down."

"Okay, whatever." Lloyd gets up and goes over to where Kai is sitting. "Are you sure about Jay? He said he was gonna try and come over."

"Yeah, bro. He says he has family visiting."

"Aw, really? That sucks." Lloyd pauses. "That he can't come over, I mean. His family doesn't suck."

Kai snickers. "That's not what he thinks! You should hear him complaining, sometimes!"

Lloyd frowns. "He complains about his family?"

"All the time," Cole comments in a bored manner, while his character gets absolutely decimated by Nya's. "He just doesn't do it in front of you 'cause –"

Kai coughs loudly. "Yeah," says Lloyd. "I get why. It's no big deal."

"So!" says Kai. "You gonna tell us what you were up to last night?"

"I told you, it was Master Builder stuff –"

"Literally all of us are Master Builders, dude," says Nya, turning around to look at him as "PLAYER TWO WINS" displays on the screen again. "You're just the only one who's on the registry. Which kinda sucks, I mean, you got enough to deal with, don't you think?"

"Yeah, actually, I do think." Lloyd sighs. "I mean, I'll tell you. You know Bad Cop?"

Zane unplugs himself from the television and rolls over. "You mean the head of the Super Secret Police?"

"The guy Lord Business hired to kidnap all the Master Builders and imprison them in his evil prison thingie?" Nya says, hopping over the back of the couch and sitting on the floor in front of him.

"That dude," Cole says, ambling over and leaning on Zane.

"Yeah, basically," says Lloyd. "Um. I met his parents."

"What?!" his friends all cry in unison. Even Cole's eyebrows shoot up.

"They're actually really nice? I mean, they helped me." Lloyd fidgets with his sweatshirt, the one Heidi and Brett loaned him. "I got separated from the other Master Builders when we were fixing one of the tunnels in Bricksburg, and I had to fight a bunch of robots, and then I got lost. They found me, and – I didn't really know who they were, they were just this old guy and lady, and they said they would make me dinner."

"Uh, stranger danger, much?" said Nya.

"They were super old! And I was really hungry!"

"Okay," Cole says. "So you went and had dinner with this evil guys parents, who were… not evil?"

"Yeah, they're super not evil. I ran away after dinner 'cause the robots came, except I got caught by them, almost, and they – Heidi is the lady's name, she got really mad at the robots when they shot me –"

Nya gasps. Kai shouts, "You got _shot?!_ " and he jumps up in alarm. "Zane, get the first aid kit!"

"I'm fine!" Lloyd shouts before Zane can go anywhere. "It was in the leg, and my leg's fine. The wizard guy in the Old West fixed it with magic. Anyway, Heidi got super mad, and she and her husband took me to the tunnel. So they kind of saved me, I guess."

"Dude," says Nya, "Next time, we're coming with you. I mean, I know we're still ninjas-in-training but so are you, dude!"

"I'm fine," Lloyd insists again. "I can handle myself, last night was just… weird. Really weird. We almost got caught by Bad Cop, too."

"'We?'" Zane inquires. "Meaning you and Bad Cop's parents?"

"Uh, yeah. They came with me to the Old West, and then Bad Cop found us." Lloyd frowns. "It turns out he's actually two people? There's a Good Cop, too, except his face is on the back of Bad Cop's head. Or maybe Bad Cop's face is on the back of Good Cop's head. Anyway, I beat him up, kind of, then his mom yelled at him. Them. Both of them."

"What happened after that?" Kai asks. "I mean, it's not like you could bring them here, so…"

"Not here-here," Lloyd says. "They said they had somewhere to stay in Ninjago, so…"

"Uh, what?" Kai squints at him. "You telling me you let two random old people join you on your cool Master Builder stuff…"

"Uh…"

"…before _us?_ "

"Uncool, dude," Cole says. Nya and Zane voice their agreement.

"It was weird, okay? I had a weird…" Lloyd yawns. "…night. A weird night."

Cole raises an eyebrow and glances at Nya. "Has he slept?"

"Not since he got here," said Nya.

"I'm right here, guys."

"He hasn't slept," Kai says. "Lloyd, get some sleep. We'll yell at you more when you wake up."

"I don't wanna sleep, I wanna play video games and kick all your butts." Lloyd rubs his eyes. "Besides, the news report said there was like, a ninety-nine percent chance of my dad attacking, I gotta –"

"Okay, first off, it was a _fifty-seven_ percent chance, and second, you can't fight Lord Business and Lord Garmadon at the same time." Kai stands up. When Lloyd tries to stand up too, Kai pushes him down back onto the couch. "There should be, like, a one-lord limit or something. Nya, go get a blanket."

"Okay," Nya says. "Cole, go get a blanket."

"I'll get a blanket," Zane says, and he rolls away while Cole is still leaning on him, sending Cole collapsing to the floor.

"That works."

"I'm fine, guys, really," Lloyd protests, but he's having trouble keeping his eyes open. The couch is pretty old and saggy, but it feels really comfortable, and he's too tired to get mad when Kai pats his head.

"Get some sleep, lil bro. We'll handle your dad if he shows up."

Lloyd finally relents. "Okay," he says, and he's asleep before Zane comes back with the blanket.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what's up, remember to like comment and subscribe if u enjoy my writing. I'm honestly really bad at commenting myself but I've found that authors still enjoy my comments even if they're stupid jokes so I've been making an effort…
> 
> anyway. I'm trying to be vague about what exactly Happened forty years ago in this au, and idk if I'll ever get into it in detail. there's like, some hints and stuff here, though, so if you wanna guess, go right ahead.
> 
> shoutout to my mom who read all 4 chapters the other day and told me she wished there was a chapter 5. good news, mom!

Edna can tell something is off.

Well, she couldn't tell at first – she was so ecstatic at finally,  _finally_  reconnecting with her sister, that she didn't find anything odd about how she showed up out of the blue with her husband.

She only starts noticing the signs after they're all at her house.

Heidi is nervous. She keeps glancing at her husband, her smile forced, her voice sounding strained, with false cheer – Edna's not the only one who notices that Heidi clearly isn't comfortable. Jay asks her at lunch, "Are you alright, Secret Aunt Heidi?" and for a split second, Heidi looks absolutely terrified.

She disguises her emotions the next moment, and laughs nervously. "It's just… strange, being here," is all she says, and Jay looks at Edna with a frown.

"Jay, can you help me with the dishes for a moment?" Edna says.

"But Ma, I'm not done eating –"

"It'll just be a moment, dear. Come with me."

Jay follows her to the kitchen. "We don't even have any dishes, not really," he says once they're there. Edna takes a deep breath.

"Jay," she says, "there's something I should tell you about… why I never told you about my sister."

"Is she a criminal or something?" Jay asks.

"What? No! No, Jay, forty years ago, I…" She sighs. "I did something that really hurt her."

"You mean, emotionally, right? You didn't break her arm or anything –"

"Of course I didn't break her arm – where are you getting these ideas? No, she told me a secret that was really important, and I told someone I shouldn't've told."

Even after all these years, even in vague terms stripped of context, Edna still feels horrible, horrible guilt. She had thought she had gotten over it, somewhat. It wasn't as if she didn't have family, even with her parents dead and her sister gone. She had Ed, and she had Ivy and Jay. Even if it was her fault that Heidi left –

"Oh," says Jay. "Is that why she's acting weird?"

"I think so. It was a long time ago, but it can't be easy for her to come back. I don't think she's fully forgiven me."

"After  _forty years?_ "

"Believe me, Jay, it was a really bad thing I did. I didn't think she was ever going to come back, that was how bad it was."

"Well," says Jay, "she's back now, so… that probably means something?"

Edna thinks of how they arrived so suddenly, without even getting a hotel. "Yes, Jay," she says. "It does."

They go back to the table. Heidi's hands are shaking. Edna pretends not to notice.

* * *

Ed drives Jay to Kai's place after lunch. Edna figures he's been waiting long enough. It's just the Edna, Heidi, and Brett now, sitting in the living room, and Edna figures it's the best time to broach the subject they've all been avoiding.

"So," she says, trying to sound cheerful. "Have you thought about staying at the house tonight? Though if you wanted a hotel, we could definitely drive you there, once Ed comes back with the car. Ivy texted me, she won't be back for a while."

"Well," Heidi says, "staying here would definitely be cheaper than a hotel…"

"I don't want you to feel forced. I know you're not comfortable here."

Heidi flinches and exchanges a worried glance with Brett. "I can tell," Edna says, before either of them can protest. "I'm sure Ed and Jay can tell, too. Heidi, I really am overjoyed that you want to reconnect, but… I think we need to talk about what happened back then."

For a moment, Heidi doesn't respond, her lips parted as if she's about to speak. Then she sets her jaw and crosses her arms. "Okay," she says. "Sure. Let's talk about it."

"Heidi," Brett says, but stops when Heidi shakes her head.

She's had forty years to prepare for this moment – Edna shouldn't be frozen in fear, her mind empty of all the words she was going to say. An awkward silence falls over them while she struggles, and finally, she says, "I'm sorry."

Heidi blinks, almost as if she hadn't been expecting that. "You're sorry," she repeats. "Really."

This isn't going the way she expected it to. Edna has a sudden memory of hiding in her room while Heidi and her parents scream at each other, and the thinks – "I really am," she says. "All these years, I didn't think I would ever see you again, and I knew it was my fault."

"Well, it was your fault," Heidi says. "Did you think I would tell you it wasn't?"

"I didn't think you would tell me anything, because you left!" She didn't mean to let that much emotion into her voice. Edna reels herself in. "Not that I blame you for leaving," she says. "What Mom and – what our parents did was awful."

"What you did was awful."

"I –" Edna's voice is shaking. "I didn't think she would react like that! I didn't think she would tell Dad, and I didn't think – I never wanted them to kick you out! I was a stupid teenager, and if I could go back in time and slap myself, I would."

The silence that follows is broken by the sound of a phone ringing.

Heidi flinches and takes out her phone, her hands shaking so bad she needs several tries with the touchscreen to answer it. "Let me talk to them," Brett says, but Heidi is already putting the phone up to her face.

"No, we are not coming back home," she says in lieu of a greeting. "I told you, Malcolm, we've made our decision. Of course we're not telling you where we are, do you think I'm stupid?" She clenches her fist, gripping the couch. "Though maybe I am, for not realizing anything was wrong with your job."

"Heidi," Brett says, "Heidi, please –"

"I'm sorry, Malcolm, but this conversation is over. Goodbye."

She hangs up and grips the phone tightly for a few moments before setting it down on the cushion beside her. She looks up in alarm when Brett stands, saying "Dear," but Brett leaves the room without a word in response.

Edna has no idea what just happened, but when she sees the tears in her sister's eyes, she only hesitates for a moment before standing up and going to her side. Heidi turns away from her, but doesn't reject her.

"Was that your son?" Edna asks.

"I didn't want to come back here," Heidi says. "I didn't have a choice. We needed a place to stay, and – I didn't have any other options. I didn't want to see you again, Edna."

It takes all the strength in the world for Edna to keep herself together.

"That's fine," she manages to say. "I… I didn't expect you to forgive me. Not really. Hoped, maybe, but… it's too much to expect. At least not now."

Heidi sniffles and takes a deep breath.

"You can still stay with us," Edna continues. "I meant it when I offered. The guest room's still open. I don't know what's going on, but – you're still my sister, and I'll do my best to help you."

"There was a time you didn't think I was your sister," Heidi said.

"What? I would never disown you –"

"You're not stupid, Edna. You know what I'm talking about."

Edna hesitates, and in that moment, the noise starts.

The sirens are muffled by distance – the junkyard is fairly far away from Ninjago City proper, after all – but Edna knows exactly what they mean. "Oh no, not while Jay's in the city –"

"What?"

Edna stands up and pulls out her phone. "Pick up, pick up – Ed! Are you with Jay? Where are you?" She starts pacing around in small circles. "You dropped him off already?! I know he knows what to do, but – Heidi, can you turn on the TV for me?"

"What's going on?" Heidi says, and she stands up too, glancing towards the window. "What are those sirens?"

"You really don't know?" Edna says. "Lord Garmadon is attacking the city again!"

* * *

When Lloyd's phone rings, Kai grabs it before Lloyd can wake up and lies to his mom with ease. "Hi, it's Kai. Lloyd's fine, he's just sleeping. Yeah, I think he and Jay stayed up all night or something." Kai pauses. "He said he was gonna be home by lunch? Oh man, sorry. He didn't tell us that, so when he fell asleep… I don't really wanna wake him up, he had a pretty intense night. Playing video games, I mean. Oh sure, it's no problem if he stays, we've got food. I'll let him know you called. Okay, bye."

Lloyd stirs on the couch, but doesn't wake up. Kai puts the phone on the floor next to him. "He's good for like, an hour or two," he says to the others, who are huddled around the television playing video games with the volume muted. "How's the tournament going?"

"I beat Cole and Jay," Nya says, "but Zane kicked my butt. I think you're the only one who's ever won against him."

"And that was one time!" Zane says.

"I can't believe I have a secret aunt," Jay says.

"Yeah," says Cole. "You've only told us, like, a million times."

"But it's so weird! She left Ninjago forty years ago 'cause my mom did something really bad. And that's weird! I didn't think my mom could do anything bad ever! She's just weird and annoying. Maybe she was  _really_  weird and annoying?"

"You know what's weird?" Nya says. "That you got a secret aunt and uncle the same day Lloyd brought Bad Cop's parents to the city."

An awkward silence falls over them. "That is weird," Zane comments.

Nya snickers. "Y'know, Zane, even with all your processing power, you are way slow to make connections."

"That's rude."

"Oh no," Jay says. "Oh no. No way. This can't be happening."

"It could be a coincidence," says Kai.

"Yeah," says Cole. "Like when we told my dads that Lloyd just happened to have the same name as Garmadon's son, and that they were actually totally unrelated. That worked for, like, two days?"

"At least they still let Lloyd come over to your house," Nya says. "That's better than Jay's parents."

"They still get all weird about it. Man, why are parents such jerks?"

"Guys, we need to focus on the bigger issue," Jay says. "Which is that there's no way I'm Bad Cop's cousin. Never in a hundred million years."

"Lloyd told us their names, right?" Nya furrows her brow in concentration. "Heidi and… uh…"

"Brett," says Jay, and the color drains out of his face. "Oh no."

"Same names, huh?" says Cole.

"Oh no!"

"You have an evil cousin," Kai says in a sing-song voice.

"I don't want an evil cousin!"

"You have an evil cousin!"

"Stop it, Kai!"

"Oh man, what if Bad Cop finds out that his cousin is a Master Builder? He'd probably flip out!"

"Don't even joke, Kai." Jay flops back on his chair with a groan. "I am so glad my parents didn't put me on the registry when they found out."

"That reminds me," says Nya, and she puts down her controller and darts over to her backpack. "I got some ideas for a mech design," she says, pulling out a notebook covered in scribbled blueprints. "I figured, like, I'm supposed to be the Water Ninja, and Ninjago City's surrounded by water, so why not build something that uses water as a weapon?"

"Cool, sis!" Kai goes over and tries to peek at the notebook page. Nya moves it away and blocks his view. "Hey, lemme see!"

"This is my  _personal journal,_  Kai! You don't get to see!"

"Can I see?" Jay asks.

"Yeah, sure."

"What!" Kai exclaims. Zane and Cole go over to peer at the notebook with Jay as Nya excitedly tells them about her design. "This is super unfair!"

The sirens catch them all off guard. Lloyd jerks awake, sitting straight upright on the couch. "Whazza – Dad attack?!"

"Gasp," says Zane.

"Augh!" Kai shouts. "This is like, the worst possible time!"

"This is bad," Jay says. "Do you think he knows Master Wu went on vacation?"

"Oh crud," says Nya.

"Don't worry," says Cole. "He'll show up any moment now. It's not like he would leave us to fight Lord Garmadon's army alone."

They wait for about thirty seconds for Master Wu to show up. There's a distant explosion.

"I'm not waiting!" Lloyd yells, and he throws the blanket off him and jumps to his feet. The next moment, he trips and almost falls flat on his face if it wasn't for Kai catching him. "I'm fine," he says, finding his footing again. "But guys, we can't sit here and do nothing!"

"But we've never fought your dad's army without Master Wu before!" Jay squeaks. "This is really bad!"

"Uncle Wu would never leave us alone if he didn't think we could handle it!" Lloyd shakes his head and scowls. "We're Master Builders, and we're awesome ninja! We can do this!"

"I totally agree," says Nya, and she slams her notebook shut and shoves it back in her bag. "I mean, who else is gonna protect the city if we don't? We've got to at least hold him off until Master Wu gets here!"

"Good points all around," says Kai. "Come on, everybody! We can do this! Ninja-GO!"

* * *

Nya's motorcycle is half-taken apart, having been in the middle of improvements when she last left it. "Uh oh," she says. "I didn't think – sorry, give me a minute."

While she rushes around fixing it, the others climb into their own vehicles. "I hate that Master Wu gets all weird when we use these!" Kai says, popping the hatch of what used to be a firetruck, but has been since stripped down and reinforced. "I still can't actually shoot fire out of this, 'cause he gets all weird! I'm supposed to be the Fire Ninja, right?!"

"He just wants us to be great ninja," Zane says, sitting in the driver's seat of an ice cream truck and plugging various wires into himself.

"We'd be better ninja if we had like, actual mechs!" Kai pulls his hood on and glares at nothing in particular. "These are just cruddy trucks and planes and junk that we stole from the scrapyard!"

"I have a tank," Cole says.

"Yeah, well, I still can't believe someone threw that away. Lloyd, what are you doing?"

Lloyd is pulling bricks off his plane and piecing them together haphazardly. "I was just thinking," he said, "it would be really cool if my plane was like, a dragon, right? So I thought –"

"Save it for our downtime! We gotta stop your dad like, five minutes ago!"

"Okay, okay!" Lloyd kicks his construct apart and puts the bricks back. "I just thought it'd be cool."

"Y'know," Jay says, already sitting in his own plane, "sometimes I forget you're literally twelve years old."

"I'm almost thirteen!" Lloyd pouts. "It's not like any of you are that much older!"

"I mean –"

"Shut up, Jay," Kai says. "Are we ready?!"

"Aren't we supposed to shout out our call signs or something?" Nya says, having put her motorcycle back together. "That's was Master Wu has us do."

"Well, Master Wu isn't here right now, okay?!"

"I'm just saying –"

"Let's go!" Kai shouts. "Ninja, roll out!"

"I don't think that's what you're supposed to say," Cole says.

"Can everyone stop yelling at me and press the button that opens all the doors?!"

"I'll get it," Jay says, climbing back out of his plane.

"Jay, you're literally the farthest person away from it, don't –" Kai groans and slumps in his seat. "Okay, dude, whatever. Do what you want. Man, Ninjago City is doomed."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> probably the last update for a while?? I've got my lego batman fic to finish before the new year's, and then I've got another fic I want to start, and I have a steven universe fic that desperately needs an update, so uh. yeah. don't be like me, just write one fic at a time

The news somehow managed to get a camera on Lord Garmadon himself. He didn't look like Lloyd, Heidi can't help but think. Lloyd doesn't have four arms, for one. He didn't sound like Lloyd, either, as he stands in the shark-themed mech and calls out orders to his generals.

"General Number Four, crash the stock market," he says. "General Number One – no, not General Number Two, I said General Number _One_ – take your team of eel people and go terrorize the elementary school or something. Who else? General Number Three, go keep an eye out for my brother, he and his stupid ninja squad are gonna show up any moment now." He pauses, scowling. "And General Number Six? Get that news team off my butt!"

"Oh crud!" says the cameraman, and the feed switches to an aerial view.

Edna is still on the phone with Ed, casting anxious glances at the TV screen while Heidi and Brett sit on the couch and watch the chaos unfold. "Jay should be fine, Kai's house is pretty far from where the attack is, but have you heard anything from Ivy? She said she was going to the mall, and that's practically right there!"

Heidi takes out her own phone and hesitates for a moment before sending a quick text.

Lloyd, dear, are you alright? >

She doesn't expect a response right away, so when her phone buzzes again it surprises her.

< kinda busy whats up

Are you safe? >

< yeah why  
< oh right  
< im fine dont worry  
< gotta head out bye

None of the worried texts she sends after that get a response. Heidi is debating calling him when the newscaster says, "Alright! Right on time, it's the Secret Ninja Force!"

Heidi feels dread like a heavy weight in her chest. Edna breaths a sign of relief. "Oh, thank goodness!"

The camera pans over to the highway, where a variety of vehicles are racing towards the action, dodging parked cars and debris littered across the road. Two jets, green and blue; two trucks, one resembling a firetruck while the other is playing a jingly tune; a motorcycle, looking far too big for the single figure driving it; and far behind them, a tank is rumbling along and crushing everything in its path.

"Looks like the Water Ninja got an upgrade," one of the newscasters comments.

His cohost nods. "Definitely looks like she's been training hard!"

"Who cares!" yells Garmadon, and the view switches over to him, standing directly in front of the camera, which is lying at an angle on the ground – Heidi feels a jolt of anxiety when she can't see the cameraman. "Today, I'm going to conquer this city, and none of my stupid brother's stupid students can stop me! Where is Wu, anyway?"

One of the jets – the green one – whooshes over his head. Garmadon ducks and retreats back inside his shark mech, the jaws closing on top of him. "C'mon, Wu, show yourself!" he shouts over the shark's speakers. "You're not gonna hide behind a bunch of kids, are you?!"

"Master Wu's not here right now!" a new voice shouts – the view switches back to aerial, and zooms in on the firetruck. Heidi can see a figure dressed in red leaning out of the window and holding a megaphone. "So there's no one to stop us from kicking your butt!"

"Is that supposed to make me scared?" Garmadon says. "Oh no, my brother's not here, now I gotta fight his students. It's like, literally taking candy from a baby, except the candy is Ninjago City and the babies are a bunch of ten year old ninja."

"I'm fourteen!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just saying? My brother doesn't have a good track record with students. Like – and this is totally hypothetical, here – if I had a son?" The shark mech crouches down to avoid another swoop from the green jet. "I wouldn't let my brother near him. Like –" The jet swoops down again, shooting green lasers at the mech, most of which bounce off harmlessly, but a couple land between cracks in the hull, and a flame ignites under the shark's eye. "– hey, kid, let me finish – like, he's a terrible teacher, let's be honest here. Now me, on the other hand – I could teach my hypothetical son to be a great warlord! We could have all this, like, father-son bonding stuff, leading an army and conquering his first city together! That would be way better than anything my brother could – hey! Stop shooting at me, I'm trying to talk here!"

"SHUT UP YOU STUPID BUTTHEAD," a familiar voice shouts out from the green jet.

"Butthead? That's all you got? You're teenagers, right? How 'bout a deal: you let me conquer the city, and I teach you all the swear words I know."

The voice coming from the tank is too far away for anyone to hear.

"What?" says Garmadon.

"He said, 'Tempting, but I'll pass!'" the red ninja shouts.

" _What?_ I can't hear you!"

"Hey, Earth Ninja! Can't your tank go any faster?!"

"Boys!" says the figure on the motorcycle – is that the Water Ninja? "He's distracting us! We've gotta protect the city!"

"I'm what?" says Garmadon. "Oh – yeah! Yeah! This is a distraction! Totally! _Generals!_ Get off your butts and stop these ninja!"

"Yes, sir!"

* * *

"I'm going as fast as I can, Kai," Cole says over the headsets. "Tanks aren't exactly built for speed."

"Can't you like, rebuild it to be faster?" Jay says. "I mean, we are Master Builders –"

Cole aims and fires at Garmadon's approaching army, blowing up the road in front of them. "Yeah, like I'm gonna get out and do my Master Building stuff right in the middle of a fight."

"I've seen Master Builders do that!" Lloyd says, still flying circles over Garmadon's shark mech. His dad isn't attacking just yet, but his generals are, and Lloyd can't afford to stay still. "Like, once our flying ship got shot in midair and the engine blew up, sort of, and someone had to get out and fix it while we were being chased. It was cool! I tried to help but –"

"Focus, Lloyd!" Nya shouts. "We've got bigger issues! Zane, how's the school situation?"

"Going well!" Zane says. "I could use some backup, though."

"Fire Ninja's on it!" Kai says. Lloyd spots his truck barrel through a blockade Garmadon's troops had set up, his sirens blaring. "The elementary school, right? 'Cause if it's the high school, I mean, I'll rescue them, sure, but also they're jerks and I'm not gonna let Zane give them ice cream afterwards."

Jay screams in everyone's ear. "AAAA – guys! I need some help!"

"Lloyd –" Nya starts.

"I'm dealing with my – I mean, with Lord Garmadon!"

"You're the only other person with something that can fly! Go help Jay!"

Jay's voice is panicked over the headset. "Lloyd, buddy, pal – I could really use your help right now!"

"Okay!" Lloyd finally tears himself away, spotting Jay dodging through the buildings, chased by a squadron of flying machines. "I'm on my way! Nya, make sure Garmadon doesn't go anywhere."

"On it!"

Lloyd holds down the fire button as he flies towards Jay, keeping an eye on the dials to make sure nothing overheats. He designed it to resemble video games he's played, except when he told Uncle Wu that, Wu frowned at him and gave him a long, long lecture about how he needed to take things more seriously. Lloyd guesses his uncle was right, as the enemy planes scattered before his jet. Ninjas don't have time for kid stuff.

Hadn't Heidi said that wasn't fair?

"Ah! Careful, you almost shot me!"

Lloyd snaps himself back to reality. "Sorry, Jay!"

"Got some more guys on your six!" Jay says. "Don't worry, I've got them! Maybe! I think!"

"Thanks!" Lloyd flies down and looks for his dad again. "Uh, Nya? Where's Garmadon?"

"I got chased into the tunnels!" Nya says, her voice coming in staticky and garbled. "I'm fine, but I dunno where Garmadon went. Sorry!"

"How'd you – Kai? Do you see him?"

"Zane and I are busy with the school! He's not here, that's all I can say."

"Jay?"

" _AAAAA_ –"

"Cole?!"

"No sign of him here."

Lloyd grits his teeth and goes to the edge of the city, flying around it in a long curve. "Where'd he –"

The missile hits his tail and sends him spinning out of control. Lloyd miraculously manages to straighten out in time to steer out of the way of a building, then slams the eject button as his jet careens down and crashes in an empty lot on the outskirts of town.

"Lloyd's down!" he hears Jay yell through his headset. "Hey! Hey! Are you okay?! Oh no oh no oh no –"

"I'm fine," Lloyd manages to say, his heart pounding. The parachute deposits him on a road and he throws it off him. "I'm fine!" He has his sword still, which is good, because some of his dad's army followed him on the ground, and they're already approaching him. "Everything is fine!"

* * *

Heidi hears the crash in real life, not on the television. She jumps off the couch and runs to the door – sure enough, when she steps outside, she can see the smoke in the distance.

"I need a car," she says.

"Heidi, get inside! If they've reached out here – it's not safe!"

"Edna," says Brett. "Listen, I know this sounds –"

"You are out of your _minds!_ " Edna shouts, her voice pitched high in panic. "The ninjas are the only people who can stand a chance against Garmadon's army!"

"The ninjas are children," says Heidi, struggling to keep her voice steady. "And one of them just crashed his plane. I need to get out there."

"You're going to get yourself killed!"

Brett raises his voice. "Edna, if you know anything about your sister, you know there is nothing you can say to make her change her mind. We are both trained officers, and I don't intend on letting that boy get killed today."

Edna's eyes dart from Brett to Heidi, who looks ready to run all the way to the crash site.

"We should have a clunker out in the junkyard," she says. "I'm – I'm going to get you Ed's gun."

* * *

"We're not, like, gonna kill him or anything, right, General Two?" one of the grunts asks. "I mean, this is a kid we're talking about here."

General Number Two shakes her head. "Nah, let's capture him and bring him back to the lair. That way, the boss can get information out of him and junk."

Lloyd takes a deep breath and adjusts his stance, keeping a tight grip on his sword. Just great, he thinks. First the Super Secret Police want to take him to Lord Business, now the shark army wants to take him to Lord Garmadon. Kai was right, there really should be a one-lord limit.

"So who's gonna get their butt kicked first?" he says defiantly. "I've fought worse than you!"

"Yeah, General Two –"

"Shut up, dude!"

General Two rolls her eyes while her troop argue among themselves. "You can't honestly be scared," she says. "There's a dozen of you and one of him."

"Yeah, but he has a sword, and teenagers are vicious. Especially ones with swords and ninja training."

"How about we make this easier," General Two says, and she raises her voice. "Stand down, Green Ninja. You're surrounded, there's more of us than there are of you. You'll probably be a lot better off if you surrender."

"No way!" Lloyd shouts.

His headset crackles. "I'm out of the tunnels," Nya says. "Lloyd, where are you?"

"I think I'm near the junkyard," he responds, keeping an eye on General Two. "You should probably head over, there's a bunch of guys here, and I don't have my plane."

"I'm on my way!"

"So are any of you gonna capture him or what?" General Two says loudly. One of the grunts finally takes a step forward, raising his weapon. Lloyd lunges forward with his sword.

At first, things seem to be going well. Block the first guy's weapon kick out the legs from underneath the other guy slam the flat of the sword on a third guy's head block the next attack – at some point, Lloyd ends up doing a lot of blocking and not much attacking, and then the only thing he can do is defend himself.

His arms ache. Lloyd is breathing hard. None of his assailants seem tired at all, and then one kicks him in the stomach and he falls backwards into someone else who grabs him.

"Got him!"

"Let me go!" he shouts, as his sword is pulled away from him and he's lifted off the ground, kicking helplessly. "Let me _go!_ "

"Alright, troops" General Two says, ignoring him. "Tie him up or something, make sure he doesn't get away. Let's bring him back to the boss."

"Uh, General, we have a situation –"

"What now?"

* * *

The gun is one of the ones that fires a single projectile at a time. It's nonlethal – well, at a close range and in the right spot, any gun is lethal, but Heidi is not planning on killing anyone if she doesn't have to. The gun is loud, the bullets will hurt, and she can work with that.

The first shot doesn't hit anyone, but it definitely gets their attention. Heidi was hoping it would distract them enough for Lloyd to get free, but he's staring at her in confusion with the others. She reloads and aims. "Let him go," she says.

"Or what?" says the leader, a woman dressed in some sort of crustacean-themed armor. Heidi can't tell if she's supposed to be a lobster or a crab. "You'll shoot us?"

"I mean, she does have a gun," says the man holding Lloyd. "So, like, I wouldn't rule out the possibility."

Heidi would shoot him, but she's not confident enough in her aim to avoid hitting Lloyd. So she shoots some other guy in the shoulder. He yells and drops his weapon, clutching the wound. "Augh! That hurts!"

"Stop being such a baby, it's not even a real gun."

"It _hurts!_ You go get shot, see how it feels!"

Lloyd tries to twist out of his captor's grip, but fails. Heidi reloads again and aims at the leader. "Let him _go._ " 

"No."

Brett runs her over with the car.

While everyone panics, Heidi runs forward and punches Lloyd's captor in the face. Lloyd breaks free with a kick and turns to Heidi.

"Why are you here?!" he shouts.

"Saw you crash," says Heidi. "Wasn't going to do nothing. You might be a ninja, but you're also a kid, and I was a trained police officer. I didn't retire _that_ long ago."

She slams the gun into one of the shark-dressed people's head. It goes off on impact and the projectile hits another thug in the foot. "Did Walker build this thing himself?!" Heidi says in alarm. "Because this is not well made at all!"

"Wait, Walker? Like, Jay Walker?"

"Yes. I'm his aunt."

"Wait, what?!"

"Long story. I'll explain in the car."

She gestures at the clunker Edna loaned them, which is currently surrounded by shark thugs that have trapped Brett inside.

"Uh. Okay." Lloyd picks up his sword from where it had been dropped and forgotten on the ground and lunges forward. Heidi keeps back and reloads, wishing that this was a normal gun that didn't have to be reloaded after every shot.

An explosion from the city makes them all freeze.

"What was that?!"

"It sounded like an explosion!"

"Can someone get this kid off me?!"

The general crawls out from under the car, looking worse for wear with her crab-or-lobster helmet cracked. "Just got orders from Boss," she says. "We're retreating."

"Already?!" Lloyd says in disbelief. "I didn't even get to fight him!"

"Thank the Earth Ninja and his tank for that! Everyone, move out!"

The shark army scatters. Heidi attempts to shoot one of them again, but misses. Brett opens the now-dented car door. "Lloyd," he starts.

"Don't call me that in public!" Lloyd says quickly.

"Ah. Your secret identity?"

"Kind of. Just – don't call me Lloyd in front of anyone. And, uh, don't tell Jay's parents I'm the Green Ninja." He frowns. "Are you really Jay's aunt?" He pauses and puts a hand to the headset he's wearing without waiting for an answer. "Jay, is Heidi really your aunt? Also, what just happened?"

Heidi can't make out what they're saying, but she can hear voices chattering over the headset. "Okay," Lloyd says. "That's good, I guess? Did anyone see who shot me? 'Cause I dunno how we're getting the plane back to base."

Brett clears his throat. "Do you need a ride anywhere?" he asks.

"Uh, no," says Lloyd. "Nya's gonna pick me up. You can go, if you want."

"Are you hurt?" Heidi says. "How's your leg?"

"My leg's fine. I'm fine." Lloyd looks down and draws lines in the ground with his sword. "Thanks for, um, helping me there, but I think you should go."

It's clear he wants them to go, for whatever reason. Heidi doesn't want to argue. "Alright, dear," she says. "Just… stay safe, alright?"

Once they're back in the car, she takes a deep breath and tells Brett, "I am going to sleep for twelve hours."

She doesn't. Once they get back to Edna's house, she sleeps for fourteen.

* * *

There's no update on the missing person case. The robots report that they haven't seen either of their parents since the night with the kid. Good Cop and Bad Cop were able to call their Ma, which went as well as could be expected, but at least they know she's alive.

_You need to focus,_ Bad Cop says while Good Cop's switched in and making themselves dinner, if coffee could be considered dinner. _Taco Tuesday's coming up soon, and we need to find them before then. What are you doing?_

"I'm fine," says Good Cop, pouring another energy drink into his coffee. 

_Not the question I asked._

Good Cop looks at himself in the mirror and downs the cup of horrible energy-coffee without breaking eye contact.

The phone rings. Good Cop jumps. Bad Cop quickly switches in and answers, his hand shaking.

The robot's words on the other end make his blood run cold.

"Sir, there's been an incident at the construction site – we found the Special!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT'S UP sorry for descending into Morro Hell for like 3 months but I'm picking up my other fics again!! I've actually had this finished for a few days but I'm trying the New Experience of not posting the chapter as soon as I finish them and going off a schedule. it's fun!
> 
> without further ado, here's chapter seven!

This whole day was a disaster.

After he finishes kicking the chair around, Bad Cop turns back to the flaming wreckage outside the tunnel and takes a deep breath. "Sir," one of the robots says, walking up to him. Bad Cop punches them in the face.

Good Cop switches in at once. "Sorry," he tells the robot, rubbing his aching hand. "We're, erm, a little stressed out."

Bad Cop takes back control. "That tunnel goes to the Old West," he growls to the remaining robots. "Get in contact with the sheriff, and make sure they know to keep an eye out for the Special. We'll be reporting to Lord Business."

"Right away, sir!"

He can feel Good Cop's anxiety buzzing in the back of his mind. Bad Cop takes another deep breath to calm his racing heart. "Let's go," he says, and he turns and forces their shared body to walk back to the car.

* * *

Heidi sits up.

It's light out, and for a moment she thinks it was the same day she had gone to sleep, but the clock on the wall tells a different story. She must have slept through the night.

"Morning, dear."

She rubs her eyes and reaches for her glasses. "Morning, Brett," she says, and all at once, the weight of what had happened the day before comes crashing down before she can say anything more.

Brett is already dressed. Same clothes he wore yesterday, but they hadn't exactly packed for the occasion. He offers her a cup of coffee. Heidi takes it with shaking hands.

"I think I'm doing everything wrong," she finds herself saying.

"Not everything," Brett says. "Some things, maybe. Heidi, we need to talk."

"I know," she says. "I know."

Neither of them say anything for a few moments. "I'm sorry," Heidi says. "You must have wanted to talk to them."

Brett nods. "I'm sorry, too. I know full well it wouldn't have helped anything if I did. I just…"

"I want our sons back," Heidi says. Tears are threatening to spill over, and she looks down at her coffee that she hasn't had any of. "Something's wrong. Something's very wrong. They never told us what their work entailed, and I just – I just accepted it, didn't press –"

"I did too, Heidi. It's both our faults."

Heidi takes a deep, shuddering breath. "We have to do something, but we can't keep burdening Lloyd like this. We need to find someone else, someone who's not a child."

"We could ask him if there are other Master Builders who can help us."

"Maybe." Heidi sips at her coffee. It's already room temperature.

"Heidi…"

She looks up. Brett averts his gaze and wrings his hands together.

"What's wrong?" she asks.

"You didn't have to come back here," he says. "I know how you felt about your family. I know you still feel that way. If you want to leave, we can, and we can deal from there."

Heidi thinks about it. "You know what?" she says. "It doesn't hurt as much. Seeing Edna again… I thought it would be so much worse. It hurts, but it's… better. Maybe we can reconcile."

"Really?"

"I'll be darned if I don't get at least one good thing out of this miserable situation. Maybe this could be it. Maybe I could have a sister again."

Brett smiles at her. Heidi finds it within herself to give a genuine smile back.

* * *

"Good morning," the unfamiliar girl says. "You're my aunt, right? I'm Ivy."

She has long brown hair falling down her back in a braid, and she looks exhausted. Edna laughs. "She's a late riser, especially on the weekends."

"Give me a break, Ma, I just need my coffee and I'll be fine." Ivy rubs her eyes and grabs a mug from the cabinet. "It's not all gone yet, is it?"

"Don't worry, I made a second pot."

While Ivy makes herself a cup, Edna puts two plates of eggs and toast on the table. "You must be hungry, after yesterday," she says. "Ed's gone to work outside – he never stays to say good morning, sometimes I wake up and he's already gone!" She laughs again. "I can call him in if you want to say hi."

"Oh no, it's fine," Heidi says, sitting down and managing a smile. "Thank you for the breakfast."

"Oh, it's nothing! You're our guests!"

While they eat, Lloyd sends her a text. Heidi takes out her phone at the table without caring if she's being rude.

< sorry about yesterday  
< vitruvius emailed me  
< there's a master builder meeting in cloud cuckooland  
< you can come if you want

While she's about to respond, Jay takes out his own phone and jumps up from the table. "Ma! Can I go to Kai's place today? Actually that's not a question, I really need to go, I just need someone to drive me."

"Again?" Edna shakes her head with a smile. "You could, but you have homework, you know."

"It's fine! Can you drive me?"

Heidi's phone buzzes again.

< meet me at kai's place if you want to come  
< it's gotta be soon though  
< it's by the old recycling center

"We might be heading out today in the same direction," Heidi says. "I could take him, if you wanted."

"Oh no, it's fine," Edna says. "We've only got two cars, and Ivy's taking mine out today. If you're heading in the same direction – Ivy, dear, do you mind driving them?"

"Sure," says Ivy. "It's not too far out of my way."

"She has homework too, you know," says Jay.

"I already did mine."

"No way –"

"What time were you thinking of going out?" Heidi asks. "The two of us should be leaving soon…"

"I can head out after breakfast," Ivy says. "Just let me wake up a little first."

* * *

After finishing their breakfasts and saying goodbye to Edna, the four of them get into the car, Heidi and Brett taking the back seats while Jay shouts, "I call shotgun!" and runs past them. Ivy rolls her eyes, whispers, "Sorry!" to the two of them, and gets in the driver's side.

"So what's going on at Kai's place?" Ivy asks while she pulls out of the driveway.

"Stuff," Jay says. "Can you go any faster?"

"I'm obeying the speed limit, Jay. What's the rush?"

Jay squirms in his seat. "Nothing!"

"So you won't mind if we get something to eat on the way?"

"Ivy! We just had breakfast!"

"I'm joking. We'll go straight there."

Jay slouches down and crosses his arms. Ivy laughs.

She drops all of them off at the edge of the recycling center, once Heidi and Brett assure her they can find their way from there. Jay gets out too, and the three of them stand there awkwardly for a few moments until Ivy's car is out of sight.

"You're going to Kai's place too, right?" Jay says.

"Yep," says Brett.

"Okay. It's this way."

He leads them through the recycling center, which really just looks like another junkyard. Heidi wonders if she should try to make conversation. Jay speaks up before she can make a decision.

"Is Bad Cop really my cousin?" he says. "'Cause he's like, super bad."

Heidi flinches. "That's not his given name, I'll say that much."

"Really? What is his real name? And is there really two of them? 'Cause Lloyd said there was."

"They're a unique situation. Malcolm is the one who goes by Bad Cop now."

"Who's Good Cop?"

"Gilligan."

Jay frowns. "If he's good, why is he working for Lord Business? I heard Business is really bad."

Heidi's eye twitches. "Most of us were unaware of that."

"Okay, but if they thought he was _good,_ then why is _Bad_ Cop –"

"You could stand to be a little more sensitive," Heidi says, her patience wearing thin.

"Oh, I'm very sensitive. If you say anything mean to me I'll cry."

Heidi decides to end the conversation there.

Kai's "place" is a warehouse. The door is open, and as they approach, Heidi spots another teenager poking her head out from the door. "Hi, Jay!" she shouts.

Jay waves. "Uh… hi, Nya!"

Nya sticks her head back inside. "Hey, Kai! Lloyd! Jay and his aunt and uncle are here! Can you stop arguing for like, two seconds?"

Heidi and Brett exchange a worried glance.

Jay leads them inside, where Heidi spots Lloyd and a boy dressed in red with spiky hair facing each other. Two other teenagers are sitting on a couch and staring at the television, which is playing a martial arts movie Heidi doesn't recognize. Upon closer inspection, the HDMI cable appears to be plugged into a socket on the the white-haired boy's chest, which she's not going to pretend to understand.

"So you invited _them_ but not any of us?!" the red boy says loudly.

Lloyd doesn't flinch, standing there with his arms crossed and glaring up at the taller teenager. "Yeah. So what?"

"We're your friends, that's what! And _we're_ Master Builders, and they're not! What's so special about them that they get to go to a Master Builder meeting instead of us?!"

Heidi feels a prickle of anxiety with the knowledge that every teenager in this room is a Master Builder, even knowing now that most of what she was told about the dangers of Master Builders were lies. Lloyd is a perfectly fine child, and so is Jay, there's no reason to assume these other kids won't be the same.

Nya rolls her eyes. "Kai, you know they're right here, right?"

Kai looks up, then back to Lloyd – then back up again, his face flushed. "Whoops! Sorry, no offense."

"None taken," Brett says. "You're Kai, I assume?"

"These are my secret aunt and uncle," Jay says.

"Yeah," says one of the kids on the couch, sounding bored as he watches the tv screen. "We know. You already told us."

"Shut up, Cole," Kai says.

"What did I even do?"

"Kai is experiencing heightened levels of emotion," the white-haired boy says in a cheerful, robotic tone. "Based on previous data, he is worried for Lloyd."

"What!" Lloyd exclaims. "Kai –"

Nya storms over to Kai and Lloyd, who stare at her with wide eyes like deer caught in headlights. "Both of you, stop arguing! Kai, if Lloyd wants to go to the meeting without us, that's his decision. Lloyd, you're a stupid jerk."

"Hey!"

"Lloyd, dear," Heidi says cautiously. "What's going on?"

Lloyd looks at them and blinks. "Oh, yeah. Um, these are my friends. This is Kai, that's Nya… I guess you know Jay already? And Cole and Zane are over there."

Zane waves at them. Cole has headphones on and doesn't look up from the movie.

"We should probably leave soon for the meeting," Lloyd says. "But Kai found out about it, and got upset that I didn't invite any of them, and we got in an argument, and now… I dunno."

"Seriously," Kai says, his tone much softer than it was before. "You don't need to do all this Master Builder stuff alone. We're a team! Just 'cause you're the only one who got put on the registry doesn't mean you need to be without us."

"I know, but…" Lloyd screws up his face and doesn't finish the thought.

After glancing at Brett again, Heidi approaches Lloyd. "Dear," she says hesitantly. "You know the both of us are honored that you trust us this much… but we aren't Master Builders."

"I know that! But –"

"It's your decision about who you bring to the meeting, but if something goes wrong on the way, we won't be able to help you."

"You shot that general yesterday," Lloyd says. "And a few other people."

"Wait, what?" says Jay.

"Heidi," Brett says. "Are you sure you want to bring more kids into this?"

"I'm fourteen!" Kai says loudly. "Lloyd's the only actual kid, 'cause he's twelve."

" _Kai!_ "

"If these kids can fight off an army by themselves, they can handle whatever Lord Business can throw at us," Heidi says. "I don't like it either, Brett, but we don't have a lot of options. There's not much we can do on our own if we encounter more of the Super Secret Police; I wouldn't be surprised if we're marked as criminals now."

Brett doesn't look satisfied by this, but he nods. Heidi turns back to Lloyd. "These are your friends," she says. "They want to help you. Why don't you let them?"

Lloyd is quiet for a long few moments. Finally, he sighs and says, "Fine."

Nya cheers, startling Lloyd and Heidi both. "Alright!" she says. "Road trip!"

Jay sucks in air through his teeth. "Um, how long are we gonna be gone?" he says. "My ma will be angry if I'm gone for too long, so…"

"Chill, bro," Cole says, ambling over and leaning against the wall next to Jay. "It's just a meeting. The most dangerous part is gonna be getting there, like, over the walls and stuff."

"It's not that hard," Lloyd says. "The place is in Middle Zealand, and it's like, in the sky, so we have to have a flying thing, so, um… maybe we should take a plane? But a big one, so it can hold all of us. Um…"

"Should we start building?" Zane says, unplugging himself from the television and sliding over. Up close, Heidi can tell he's not entirely flesh and blood – is he a robot, like President Business' Super Secret Police? He stops next to Cole, who switches from leaning on the wall to leaning on his friend.

"Probably," Nya says. "Lloyd, how soon should we go?"

"Pretty soon," Lloyd says. "Um. Okay, yeah, we should build. Let's go to the stuff."

Kai laughs and throws an arm around Lloyd's shoulders. "Thanks for bringing us, bro," he says. "I promise we won't let you down!"

"You could never," Lloyd says with a grin. "Do I look like Master Wu to you?"

The kids all crack up. "Okay!" Nya says. "Let's build!"

* * *

"We should make it look like the Destiny's Bounty," Nya says.

"It should look like a dragon," Kai says.

"Maybe it should look like a normal plane?" Jay says nervously. "I mean, we are going to be flying it over the city."

"It should actually look like a dragon," Lloyd says, already gathering an armful of bricks. "I told you, it's in Middle Zealand. There's no technology there, but there are dragons."

"Dope," says Cole. "Have you seen one?"

"Um, they're pretty dangerous, so… not really."

While the ninjas chat with each other and build, Heidi and Brett sit on the couch and talk in quiet tones.

"Heidi, we don't know what's going on," Brett is saying. "We don't know what Business has done to them, if he has done anything."

"I know we raised them better than this," Heidi says firmly. "Something must be going on to have them act like this. The secrecy, the fear – it's not normal, Brett."

"I know it's not normal. None of this is normal. But we need to be prepared for the worst."

"The worst? What are you talking about?"

"Don't raise your voice, Heidi. I just…" He sighs. "I don't know if we knew our sons as well as we thought we did. I know they're not bad people… but they might think they're doing the right thing."

Heidi turns away. "Then they've been lied to. Then _Lord Business_ is manipulating them. They would never –" Her voice catches. "They would never hurt people like this."

"I know, Heidi," Brett says. "But they have."

Heidi doesn't know what to say to that.

"Okay," comes Jay's voice. "Hey, secret aunt and uncle! We're ready!"

They look back, to where a mechanical dragon has been built in the warehouse. It's mostly red, taken from Kai's firetruck, but with other bright colors haphazardly added in. Lloyd is looking at it and frowning. "I wish we had all the right colors," he says. "Someone's probably gonna tell this isn't real."

"We should add flamethrowers," Kai says.

"I think not," Zane chirps.

"Does it have room for everyone?" Heidi asks, walking closer to get a good look at it. It doesn't seem very big. "There are seven of us."

Cole shrugs. "I mean, probably?"

As soon as everyone squeezes inside, Kai, and Nya start squabbling over who gets to pilot – "We used my firetruck!" "I called dibs!" – before Lloyd overrides them with, "I'm the one who knows where we're going." Once everyone's settled down, Lloyd grabs hold of the controls and the dragon rumbles to life.

"Let's go," he says.

"Alright!" Nya says. "Cloud Cuckooland, here we come!"

Heidi squeezes Brett's hand and hopes for the best.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey remember when I started referring to unikitty with they/them pronouns in piece of rebellion well I'm Back On My Nonbinary Headcanons
> 
> remember to like comment & subscribe if u like my writing. thanks for reading

The ninjas all chat excitedly during the flight. Brett and Heidi stay quiet; there's not really any room for them to join the conversation. The warehouse is next to an abandoned dock, so Lloyd pilots the dragon out over the ocean, retracing the route they took across the ocean to get to Ninjago.

"Are you sure we'll be home before my parents get worried?" Jay asks.

"Yeah, Jay," Lloyd says. "It's just a meeting. It'll be fine."

"But I've never been outside of Ninjago before, so I don't know how long it's gonna take –"

"I said it'll be fine!"

Jay flinches. "Uh, okay."

Cole pats his back. "Relax, dude. Your mom won't kill you if you're out a little later than usual." His expression darkens. "Unless there's something you're not telling us –"

"No, no!" Jay says quickly. "She'll just be worried, and I don't want to worry her! Or my Pa."

Cole shrugs. "Alright. I've already disappointed my dads, so they probably won't care."

"I don't think my dad will even notice!" Zane says cheerily.

Brett takes a deep breath. "You… you kids know that's not normal, right?"

Everyone looks at him, including Heidi, and including Lloyd, who turns away from the controls. "I think it's pretty normal for dads to suck," Nya says. "Some… more than others. Jay's just really lucky."

"No offense," Kai says quickly. "I mean, I don't know you, but you seem like a pretty cool dad? You probably don't suck. But most dads either suck or they die."

Lloyd returns to piloting. "Can we talk about something else?"

The rest of the ride continues in silence.

* * *

Middle Zealand is big and filled with farms, it looks like. Brett goes to the edge of the cloud they're standing on to get a better look. Heidi tugs on his arm. "Dear…"

"It's fine, Heidi, I just want to see…"

"We've seen farms before, Brett." There's fear in Heidi's voice, and Brett relents and lets her pull him away, towards where Lloyd and the other ninja are gathered.

"There's a secret knock," Lloyd is explaining. "It's really cool, because no one would ever guess it."

"Is it like, super complicated?" Nya asks.

"No, you just knock once." Lloyd grins. "See? You think it's gonna be complicated, but it's not! So no one could guess it, right?"

"Maybe?" Jay says.

"Whatever. Let's go."

He knocks hard against the wall of cloud.

For a long moment, nothing happens.

The door opens a crack. Brett can hear a rhythmic beat coming from inside. Lloyd pushes it the rest of the way open and all eight of them file inside.

Cloud Cuckooland is filled with bright colors and noise, crowds of people laughing and dancing and talking to each other loudly so their voices can be heard over the chaos. It's overwhelming, and Brett almost wants to step back outside, but he forces himself to stay. They've gone too far to turn back now.

"Whoa," Cole says, looking around in awe. "Where's that music coming from?"

"Is it just, like, an endless party here?" Kai asks.

"I better record this!" Zane says, and his eyes start blinking red.

"Okay," Lloyd says. "Don't get distracted, guys, we need to find –"

" _Hi-iii!_ "

The loud greeting is followed by a large pink unicorn – wait, no, that's a cat. Maybe? They have a cat face with a unicorn horn, and their hooves are clip-clopping on the hard ground as they bound circles around the group. "Green Ninja, you made it! And you brought your friends! You're the other ninja, right?"

Kai grins. "So he did tell you about us! I'm –"

The unicorn-cat doesn't let him finish. "My name is Princess Unikitty, and I welcome you all to Cloud Cuckooland!" They pause for a few moments. "Okay! Welcoming done! I'm waiting for the Special, but you can go get set up in the Dog!"

"Um," Heidi says.

Unikitty immediately spins around to stare at her and Brett with wide eyes. "You're not ninja! Who are you? You're Master Builders, right? I've never seen you before, ever ever ever!"

"They're my friends!" Lloyd says, jumping in before either of them can answer. "Heidi and Brett! Don't ask about their last names!"

"Wow, what?" Unikitty frowns. "Why shouldn't I –"

"Uh, is this door supposed to be open?"

Unikitty does a full turn and then some until they're facing the door again, where a small group is standing awkwardly around the entrance. "Oh! It's the Special! HI, EVERYBODY!"

Lloyd pulls on Brett's arm, and they take the chance to slip away before Unikitty can ask more questions. Brett notices Lloyd keeps glancing back at the people that just came in – Brett recognizes Vitruvius, but the young woman, construction worker, and man dressed in black are unfamiliar. The construction worker has what looks like a large red brick on his back.

"Wow," Lloyd says.

"What?" says Jay.

"That's the Piece of Resistance."

"The what?"

Something about that sounds familiar. "Didn't Vitruvius say something about that?" Brett says.

Lloyd nods. "Yeah! It's the only thing that can stop the Kragle, so it's really important, and whoever finds it is the Special, so I guess that's the Special? But he looks kind of stupid."

"That's not very nice," Heidi says.

"Well he _does._ Master Builders are supposed to look cool and stuff. He just looks like some generic construction guy."

"Does it matter?" Nya says. "Looks aren't everything."

"It could be a clever disguise meant to confuse Lord Business' police force!" Zane says.

Heidi looks around. "Where were we supposed to go?" she asks.

Lloyd shakes his head and looks around with her. "Uh, Unikitty said the Dog, but I've never been here before, so I don't know where…"

"It's probably that thing," Kai says, pointing. Sure enough, in the distance, there was a round building styled like a dog head. "I mean, what else would she be talking about?"

"They."

"What?"

"Unikitty's nonbinary, they use they pronouns."

"Oh, okay."

Brett nods. "Alright, let's head on over."

Jay tugs on Cole's arm, unsuccessfully trying to pull him away from the nearby dance floor. "Cole, we have to go to the meeting!"

"C'mon, dude, I just want to talk to the DJ –"

"Cole!" Nya shouts. "Let's go!"

"Yeah," says Lloyd. "The meeting's gonna start soon, especially now that the Special's here. We can look around afterwards."

Zane joins Jay and takes hold of Cole's other arm. Cole finally relents. "Alright, alright," he says, letting the two lead him away. "But I gotta talk to him later, okay?"

Brett feels Heidi step close to him, and their hands slip into each other's familiar grasp. He takes a deep breath before following Lloyd and the rest of the ninja, towards the Master Builder meeting place.

* * *

"Okay, guys," Lloyd says, pulling his hood on as they take the top row of seats just to the right of the entryway. "These Master Builders are really, um, important and stuff, so just be cool, okay?"

The other ninja look around with wide eyes, craning their necks to watch the Master Builders filing in. Brett doesn't recognize most of them, but he figures that's appropriate. It would be worse if he did recognize them from wanted posters or the like.

There are some familiar faces, though. Superheroes, mostly. No better way to know you're on the wrong side of history than when Superman's with the "bad guys."

"Oh my gosh," Nya says. "Is that Wonder Woman? For real?"

"Yeah," says Lloyd.

"Can I talk to her? Is that, like, a cool thing to do? Oh my gosh, oh my gosh –"

"This is really intimidating," Jay says, ducking down in his seat. "I know it's like, we're all Master Builders, but these guys look way more… Master Builder-y."

"I'm sure we're cool, bro," Kai says. "I'm gonna talk to Superman right n –"

Vitruvius, standing in the center of the room, clears his throat. The ninjas quiet down and stare at him with wide eyes. Brett sits up a little straighter.

"My fellow Master Builders," Vitruvius says. "Including, but not limited to, Robin Hood, Mermaid Lady, Gandalf, Wonder Woman, Green Ninja –"

Lloyd beams behind his hood.

"– a bunch of other ninja in colors I don't recognize –"

"I'm Jay," Jay shouts. Cole immediately starts shushing him.

"He doesn't recognize colors?" Zane says once Jay is silenced.

"Yeah, he's blind," Lloyd whispers.

"But then how –"

"Shh!"

"You have traveled far to be here for a moment of great import," Vitruvius continues. "We have learned that Lord Business plans to unleash a fully-weaponized Kragle on Taco Tuesday to end the world as we know it."

"What!" Lloyd shouts, and he jumps to his feet as the other Master Builders start raising their voices. The rest of the ninja exchange confused glances. Brett's heart leaps into his throat – he doesn't know what the Kragle is, not exactly, but he remembers Vitruvius calling it a "super-weapon" when they met in the Old West.

He looks at Heidi. His wife is looking down at her hands and mumbling to herself. "Today's Sunday… should be fine… have to… by tomorrow…"

"Dear?" Brett asks. Heidi doesn't acknowledge him.

"Please! Calm yourselves!" Vitruvius says loudly. "Swamp Creature, Nice Vampire, Lady Liberty, Michelangelo, Michelangelo – there is yet one hope. The Special has arisen."

He steps to the side and gestures with his staff in approximately the right direction. The young man with the red piece on his back looks… nervous, mostly. He blinks and takes a few steps back, his eyes darting side to side at all the faces pointed at him. He seems out of his element. Brett can sympathize.

"Have the young man step forward," Gandalf says.

"As you wish, Dubbledore," says Vitruvius.

"I'm Gandalf! You just introduced me!"

"I did?"

"It's pronounced 'Dumbledore,'" the other wizard-looking man besides Gandalf says softly.

Vitruvius raises an eyebrow. " _Dubble_ dore?"

"No! _Dumble_ dore."

"But you said Dubbledore –"

"Vitruvius!" Gandalf snaps.

" _Alright you gotta write all that down 'cause I'm not gonna remember any of it but here we go_ –"

He ducks out of the way of the Special, who continues to stand there with a blank expression. 

"The Special will now give an eloquent speech," Vitruvius announces.

The Special bites his lip and takes another step back. It takes some encouragement from Vitruvius before he slowly walks to the center of the room. "Hello," he says. "I'm, uh, Emmet."

The Master Builders say nothing.

Emmet blinks. "Oh," he says. "And this is the, uh, Piece of Resistance."

Cheering rises up from the crowd. Glancing at Lloyd, Brett sees that he has a grin on his face.

"That's the thing!" Lloyd says. "The Piece of Resistance!"

"Yeah, you showed it to us just earlier," Nya says.

"But it's just so cool! That's what's gonna stop the Kragle and defeat Lord Business forever!"

"Cool," says Cole. "How's he gonna do it before Tuesday?"

"Well, that guy's the Special. He'll figure it out."

Emmet speaks again, once the crowd has quieted down. "Thank you," he says, and he manages a smile.

His next words are spoken with more confidence. "Well, I know that I for one, am very excited, to work with you guys! To get into the Octan Tower, find the Kragle, and put this thing on the thing!" He frowns. "And I know it's going to be really hard –"

"Really hard?!"

Brett had not seen the enormous cyborg pirate when they had all sat down, but it's impossible to miss him now – the other Master Builders gasp as he stomps down the rows of seats and advances towards Emmet. "Wiping ye bum with a hook for a hand is 'really hard.' This be _impossible!_ "

"Oh great," Lloyd says. "Not him."

"What's going on?" Nya asks. She and the other ninja lean their heads close to Lloyd. "Who is this?"

The pirate continues talking loudly. "The last time we tried to storm Lord Business' office, we used every plan we could conceive! The result?" He grabs Emmet and fires a few shots at random from his cannon arms. Brett winces at the noise. "Was a massacre to terrible to speak of!"

Emmet pipes up. "Who are you?"

"The name be Metalbeard!" He bangs on his namesake for emphasis. "And I'll tell ye me tale of woe."

"Oh great, here we go again," Vitruvius mutters.

Lloyd groans loudly, only for the man sitting just above them to admonish him with, "Have some respect, child."

Brett notices Heidi leaning forward in her seat.

Metalbeard begins. "I arrived at the foot of the tower with me hearty Master Builder crew – only to find that the Kragle was all the way up on the infinitieth floor!"

"That's not possible," Zane says, just loud enough for Metalbeard to overhear and throw a glare in his direction.

"It was guarded by a robot army and security measures of every kind imaginable." Metalbeard stomps his peg leg. "Lasers! Sharks! _Laser_ sharks! Overbearing assistants!"

"I can see why you don't like him," Jay whispers to Lloyd. "He's really intense."

"I think he's kind of cool," says Kai.

" _And,_ there be strange, dangerous relics, that entrap! Snap! And _zap!_ And there be a mysterious room called…" He pauses briefly. "The Think Tank!"

The Master Builders are whispering to each other.

"I barely made it out of that room with just me head!" Metalbeard says. After a moment's thought, he adds, "And me organs."

"O… kay," says Emmet.

Brett feels movement beside him – Heidi is standing with one arm raised. "Excuse me?" she calls out. "Excuse me? Metalbeard?"

"What are you doing?" Lloyd says. "Um, Miss Heidi – can you sit down?"

"I had to replace every part of my once strapping, virile pirate body – with this useless hunk of garbage ye see before – eh?" Though he doesn't notice her at first, Metalbeard is standing close to them now, and he rolls his eyes at Heidi's raised hand. "Lady, this ain't elementary school. Ye don't need to be raising yer hand to talk."

"May I ask a question?" Heidi purses her lips. "Who else is working with Lord Business?"

Metalbeard snorts. "Everyone knows Lord Business can't get anyone else working with him. That's why he built all those Octan 'bots!"

"And what about Good Cop and Bad Cop?"

The room goes quiet. Everyone is staring at them.

"Heidi," Brett whispers, "please be careful."

Metalbeard raises an eyebrow. "What of them?"

"They're not robots," Heidi says. "Why did they join Lord Business? Do you know?"

"Who are ye, exactly?"

Brett puts a hand on Heidi's shoulder and speaks before she can answer. "Concerned citizens," he says. "We're not Master Builders, but we found L – the Green Ninja here when he was being chased by the police. Got ourselves marked as criminals as well, which is why we're here."

"Yer not Master Builders?" Both of Metalbeard's eyebrows shoot up. "Ay, Green Ninja! Yer not supposed to be bringing ordinary folks here!"

"Well," Emmet says, "I'm not technically a Master Builder either, so –"

"What?!" Metalbeard yells, turning away from Heidi. The other Master Builders start clamoring.

With the attention off her, Heidi pushes Brett's hand off her shoulder. "Brett, why did you do that?" she hisses.

Brett shakes his head and gestures around them, at the hall full of Master Builders directing their ire at Emmet, who is giving a very self-deprecating speech. "You know our children have made plenty of enemies here. Don't want to make some for ourselves."

"Yeah," Lloyd says – Brett flinches at his voice, having forgotten he and the other ninja were there. "Um, I know you're their parents and everything, but everyone here kind of hates those guys. So probably don't say you're their parents?"

Heidi crosses her arms and scowls down at the ground.

Brett hasn't been listening, but the Master Builders seem very upset with whatever Emmet's saying. "Is this supposed to make us feel better?" growls the swamp creature, and the others grumble their agreement.

"I think we should go," Lloyd says, and he stands up. "This guy's not the Special. He basically just gave this whole speech about how can't do anything."

"Wait, hang on," Emmet says as the Master Builders start throwing things at him. "There was about to be a 'but…'"

"You're a butt!" Gandalf shouts.

"You know," Heidi says, "if this is how Master Builders treat people like us, then maybe I can understand where Lord Business is coming from."

"What?!" Lloyd yelps. Brett quickly glances around to see if anyone heard her, but no one is paying any attention to them.

"I'm serious!" Heidi says. "Look at them all! They're not – better than us just for being able to – to build things! And this boy comes up, the one who's supposed to save them all, and they're treating him horribly!"

"My secret aunt kind of has a point," Jay says from the row above them. "Um, no offense, Lloyd, but the other Master Builders are kind of mean."

"I agree," Zane says.

Kai frowns. "They're really cool and all, but I think we're way cooler. Like, _way_ cooler. You know?"

In the center of the room, Emmet looks around dejectedly, his shoulders slumped. "Well," he mumbles, "at least it can't get any worse."

This is, of course, when the floor starts rumbling.

* * *

_I'm starting to think you don't actually know how to hack into the Master Builder's computer network,_ Bad Cop says.

Good Cop can feel the anxiety in his voice. "I'm fine," he hisses, tapping furiously at the keyboard. "We're fine! I've got this!"

He keeps glancing back towards the entrance, where they've placed two of their copbots to guard the door. There's only a limited amount of time before the Master Builders are done with their meeting, and even with all the reinforcements they brought, Good Cop doesn't like their chances of fighting their way out through dozens of Master Builders.

"I think I've got it now," Good Cop says, forcing his doubts out of their head. "Just got to press this button…"

The computer speaks up in a cheery voice. "Disabling silly cloud stabilizers."

"…whoopsie," Good Cop squeaks, just as the floor groans and tilts beneath their feet.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey what's up im glad I'm not pulling 50% of the dialogue straight from the lego movie for this chapter

The floor is shaking, the entire realm is tilting, and out of the chaos, Unikitty's voice rises above. "Everyone! Stop panicking and feeling not-happy things!"

Miraculously, the crowd calms, though the floor is still rumbling. Unikitty darts forward to the center of the room, their fur standing on end. "What's going on?! It feels like the silly cloud stabilizers were deactivated!" 

"I think the silly cloud stabilizers were deactivated!" shouts a superhero dressed in green.

For one brief moment, Unikitty's fur flashes red and orange. "That's what I _just_ –"

"Watch out!" Jay yells; Heidi barely registers what's happening when an enormous hand grabs her and lifts her off the ground.

"Hey!" Metalbeard holds Heidi right up to his face. "Do ye have something to do with this?!"

Brett jumps to his feet. "You put her down this instant!"

Despite her position, Heidi fixes Metalbeard with a glare. "No! Why are you accusing me?!"

"Yer not Master Builders, ye be asking about some of our worst enemies – yer acting mighty suspicious, lady!"

"They're not part of it!" Lloyd shouts. "Put her down! We were with them the whole time they were here!"

"Maybe ye all be traitors!"

"Metalbeard!" Gandalf snaps. "Calm yourself! We have bigger problems to worry about!"

Metalbeard growls, but does put Heidi none-too-gently back down on the seats. "Ye mean _ye_ have bigger problems. I be leaving this lost cause!"

"No!" Superman shouts, and he flies to the center of the room beside Unikitty. Metalbeard rolls his eyes and leaves without waiting for him to continue. "This is the last world free from Lord Business' rule! We need to keep it safe! I'll support it from below! Batman, Wonder Woman –" he points at each of them in turn. "Escort the Princess to the stabilizers so they can _re-_ stabilize them!"

"Hang on," says the superhero dressed in black. "Batman works –"

"Shove it, babe," the woman next to him says. "We'll keep an eye on the Piece – go stop whatever this is!"

Batman is given no room to protest as Wonder Woman hoists him over her shoulder and follows Unikitty out the door.

"Hey!" Kai says, and Heidi – along with Brett and the ninja – look up at him, standing on the top row. "We can help! What d'ya say, Lloyd?"

Lloyd shakes his head and blinks. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah! We're ninja! We can do this! C'mon – Ninja-GO!"

The ninja cheer, then catapult themselves over Heidi's head and down to the floor below.

"I'd like to get out of this room, dear," Brett says, snapping Heidi out of her state. She hadn't even realized he had his arms around her. "Might be calmer once we're not in a closed area."

Heidi nods, slowly. "You're right," she says. "Let's go. We're not of much use here."

The ninja are crowded around Vitruvius, Emmet, and the woman who called told Batman to shove it, forgetting the two non-Master Builders they brought with them in their eagerness to help the Special. Heidi hears part of their conversation as she and Brett walk by.

"Okay," Kai says, bouncing up and down. "How can we help? What do we do?"

"You should probably just listen to Vitruvius and Wyldstyle," Emmet says. "I, uh, don't really know what to do in this situation, and I'm kind of freaking out!"

"You guys are Master Builders, right?" says the woman – Wyldstyle, Heidi assumes. "I know the Green Ninja is, but –"

"Yeah!" Lloyd says quickly. "We're all Master Builders, it was just the other two that aren't." He blinks and looks around, his eyes landing on Heidi and Brett. "Miss Heidi! Where are you going?"

Heidi freezes. Brett has to speak for her. "We're keeping out of the way," he says calmly. "Just leaving the building. It's a little claustrophobic in here."

Emmet frowns. "Maybe I should go, too?" he says. "I mean, it's not like I can really… do anything. With me, you know, being not a Master Builder and also a huge disappointment."

"You're not going anywhere," Wyldstyle says. "You've got the Piece, remember? We need to keep it safe!"

"Hey, dude," Cole says. "You've got something on your ankle there."

Emmet looks down and frowns. "Huh?"

Zane rolls forward. "From a preliminary scan, it appears to be a tracking device," he says. "You should probably take care of that."

It takes a few moments for Zane's words to sink in.

"That's not good," Vitruvius says. Emmet starts screaming, which catches the attention of all the Master Builders in the room.

"What's going on?" Gandalf demands.

Emmet is hopping around on one foot, reaching for the blinking red stud stuck on his ankle. Wyldstyle grabs his leg and yanks off the device, holding it out in front of her. "Okay," she says. "No one panic. Nothing bad's happened _yet_ –"

"There's an earthquake," Jay says. "I think that's pretty bad."

"For all you know, that just happens sometimes."

"Where did it come from?" Kai demands. "Like, who's tracking? Do we get to fight someone?"

Wyldstyle glances around at the other Master Builders, then lowers her voice. "No one panic," she repeats, "but it must've been Bad Cop. He caught us in the Old West, and we wouldn't've gotten out of there if Batman hadn't shown up. Emmet got hit by something, but we didn't think –"

Heidi speaks up. "Is the tracking device still functional?"

She's piecing a plan together in her mind, and she hopes Brett will be able to understand what she's going to do. He's staying silent; Heidi glances at him and sees his face deep in concentration.

"You're right," Wyldstyle says. "We should get rid of it, before –"

"Give it to me."

Lloyd swallows hard. "Um, Miss Heidi, I don't think –"

"Okay, is there something I'm missing here?" Wyldstyle asks. "Who are you, and why should I give you the tracking device?"

Heidi meets Wyldstyle's eyes. "Brett and I are Bad Cop's parents," she says. "I need to talk to him and Gil – Good Cop both. Give me the tracking device."

"What?!" Emmet yells.

Wyldstyle tenses. "And how do we know we can trust you?" she snaps. "I'm sorry, but if you're _Bad Cop's parents_ –"

"They saved me!" Lloyd shouts. "I was running from the Super Secret Police and they stopped them and they saved me when I got shot in the leg and they gave me lasagna!"

"That doesn't mean anything!"

"It means _something,_ " Lloyd insists.

Heidi repeats herself. "Give me the tracking device."

"I think it's fine," Vitruvius says.

Wyldstyle glares at him. "Vitruvius –"

"What? I met them. They risked a lot to bring the Green Ninja to me. They're risking much more to be here right now." Vitruvius shrugs. "Cloud Cuckooland's secrecy is already compromised. What's the worst that could happen?"

The look she gave them made Heidi think Wyldstyle could think of a variety of "worst things" to happen. "We should at least have a plan," she says. "We're not going to be able to just _talk_ to _Bad Cop._ We need to set up an ambush."

"Then lets do it fast," Heidi says. "If they're already on their way, we don't have a lot of time."

* * *

The quaking has settled down by the time the plan is put into action; Unikitty and the others must have managed to fix the problem, or maybe Superman is holding up the entire realm from below. Either one is likely.

They don't tell the other Master Builders what they're doing. On the outskirts of Cloud Cuckooland, Heidi and Brett sit on a newly-constructed bench, the tracking device lying between them. All around them, in the colorful buildings and structures, the ninja, Wyldstyle, and Vitruvius all hide, ready to step in if something goes wrong. Emmet is hiding, too, but he probably won't be much help if it comes down to a fight.

Jay is starting to feel antsy.

"Lloyd –" he whispers.

"Green Ninja," Lloyd hisses. "Not everyone knows I'm – it's a secret identity, okay?"

"Oh," Jay says. "I guess I should call myself Lightning Ninja, probably? I mean, I already said my name was Jay, but –"

"Quiet!"

Jay is quiet. Nothing happens.

A few moments later, he whispers again. "Lloyd, what are my cousins like?"

"Bad," Lloyd says immediately. Then, "Why do you care? They're the bad guys. I know Good Cop is named that, but if he's working for Lord Business –"

"I guess I'm just curious," Jay says. "I mean, I only found out like, yesterday that I have a secret aunt and uncle? And my ma hadn't spoken to her sister in forty years? And my cousins are bad guys? And it's weird."

Lloyd says nothing.

"And, um… you're the only one I know who's met them, who's not, like, their mom. I think. You've met them, right?"

"It doesn't matter. We gotta stop Business, and that means fighting them. Okay?"

"But they're family," Jay says, and immediately regrets his words when he hears Cole and Kai groan in unison. "Sorry," he quickly adds. "I didn't mean, uh…"

He trails off. Lloyd doesn't respond.

Then they have to _really_ be quiet, because there are voices coming towards them.

"The signal is coming from over here, sir!" says a robotic voice, much more robotic than Zane's – but Zane is a nindroid, not a robot, Jay thinks, and also he's their friend. So obviously a real robot's voice would sound different.

"Quiet," mutters a distinctly non-robot voice. "I don't like this. It's too quiet."

Jay glances out from his hiding place at Heidi and Brett. Heidi is staring straight ahead, her mouth set in a hard line. She doesn't notice him. Brett does, and he gestures for Jay to duck back down again.

"If it's too quiet, sir –" the robotic voice says again, louder, before they're shushed into silence.

"That's not what I meant! Don't make any noises. This could be a trap."

Jay can't stop himself from fidgeting with his hood. Lloyd glances back at him briefly before focusing his attention on Heidi and Brett again.

Finally, two robots step into view, flanking a man wearing a police uniform and sunglasses. The robots are holding guns, which are kind of scary but not any scarier than what Lord Garmadon's army has, Jay thinks. Except, of course, when they fight Garmadon's army they have their vehicles and now they have nothing –

Heidi stands up and clears her throat. "Malcolm?" she calls out.

The man with sunglasses – Malcolm? Bad Cop? – freezes. "Put your guns down," he snaps to the robots. "Ma, what –" His voice quavers. "What are you _doing_ here?!"

Jay guesses he understands. If he was fighting Lord Garmadon's army and he found out his parents were there, he'd be pretty freaked out. Though this is more like if _Jay_ was with Lord Garmadon's army and his parents were working with the ninja, which would be pretty bad, too, but for different reasons.

"Malcolm," says Heidi, and Brett stands up with her. "Malcolm, Gilligan, both of you… we need to talk."

Bad Cop's eyes dart from side to side. "This isn't just a talk," he says.

"Malcolm –" Heidi tries again.

"Do you think we're stupid?" he snaps. "You managed to get hold of the tracking device, use it to bring us here – and I can _see_ those kids hiding!"

"Crud," Nya says loudly. "Should we –"

"We don't need to fight," Brett says. "We don't want anyone to get hurt. There's a way to settle this peacefully."

"We're not stupid," Bad Cop says. "And neither are you. If you're in this deep, you know that's not –"

Abruptly, his head spins and a different face appears, wide eyes behind round glasses, looking absolutely terrified. If Jay had to guess, he's say this is Good Cop.

"What are you doing here?!" Good Cop cries. "You shouldn't be here! You shouldn't be involved in any of this! Mummy, Daddy –"

"Gilligan, talk to us," Heidi pleads. "Why are you doing this? We don't know the full extent of what President Business has done – but you do. Why are you working for him?"

"We –"

Bad Cop switches back in, cutting Good Cop short. "We can't tell you," he says. "You wouldn't understand."

"We'll understand more if you tell us than if you don't," Brett says. "What was Gilligan about to say?"

Bad Cop's face is unreadable. "Something stupid."

"Don't talk about your brother that way," Heidi says sternly. "Listen to us. You don't have to work for him."

"You don't understand –"

"Sir," says one of the robots, alerting everyone that the two were still there. "We should report this to –"

"We're not reporting anything," Bad Cop says. "This doesn't change anything."

"Well," Kai says, and then, "Shut up, Lloyd, he already knows we're here – _well,_ you're _way_ outnumbered, so maybe you should –"

"Kai, dear," Heidi says, "please stay out of this for now."

Bad Cop smirks. Jay shudders.

"There's only six of you," Bad Cop says. "You don't think I came in here, to the Master Builder's secret hideout, with only two robots, did you?"

Jay isn't sure if he should be hiding anymore, especially if Bad Cop can see all of them. Lloyd has moved next to Kai and the two of them are urgently whispering to each other, while Cole, Zane, and Nya are glancing around at each other's hiding places. He doesn't know where Wyldstyle and Vitruvius are, but –

Wait. Bad Cop said there were six of them. Wyldstyle and Vitruvius made _eight._

"I'm not going to argue about this," Bad Cop continued. "I've made my decision, and you have, apparently, made yours."

"Malcolm, don't do this," Heidi says softly. "We can help you. We can get you out of whatever awful situation you're in. We know you wouldn't do this because you wanted to."

"We don't –" Bad Cop shook his head. "We never wanted you involved. We're going to do the best we can to keep you safe, but we're going to have to arrest you."

The robots on either side of him raise their guns again. "Malcolm," Brett begins, but Bad Cop ignores him to pull out a radio.

"All units," he begins. Wyldstyle jumps out and kicks the head off the nearest robot before he can continue.

Jay yelps in surprise as more robots burst out of their surroundings – one of them was right next to him! How did he not notice? They grab his arm, and Jay struggles uselessly in their grip. "Guys! Guys! Help!"

Nya kicks the robot in the head, attempting the same move Wyldstyle just used. The impact sounds a loud _clang,_ but the robot's head remains firmly attached to their body. They do, however, emit a loud, "Ow!"

"What do you mean, 'ow?'" Lloyd says. "You Super Secret Police 'bots can't feel pain!"

"Technically," the robot says, "we have a warning system when parts of our bodies receive damage, and we do feel pressure, so –"

Lloyd stabs a sword through their chest, shutting them up.

"My foot hurts!" Nya glances over at Wyldstyle, who is fighting off five robots at once and winning. "How did she do that?"

"You could ask," Kai suggests.

"No way –"

"Guys!" Lloyd shouts. "We need to help Heidi and Brett!"

He points at them, surrounded by robots. Heidi doesn't look as confident as she was before. She mostly just looks terrified, Jay thinks.

He can't stop glancing at Bad Cop, who is barking orders into his radio. Jay ducks away from another robot's attempt to grab him and creeps away from the fight.

Someone grabs his shoulder and Jay screams.

"Bro," Cole says, "calm down. Where are you going? We've got some, uh, stuff to take care of, here."

Jay takes a few deep breaths and lowers his voice. "I want to talk to Bad Cop," he says. "Um, I think if I get close, maybe I can –"

Cole rolls his eyes. "Dude, he just tried to arrest his parents. I don't think you being his cousin means anything to him."

"But –"

"Hey! Kids!" They both turn to Wyldstyle, who is only using one arm to keep the five robots at bay. "You're ninjas, right? Do some ninja-ing!"

Cole grimaces. "Man I wish we had our mechs right now."

"Um…"

Jay glances around the area. There really are a lot of robots now, and even with Lloyd, Kai, Nya, and Zane all trying to get to Heidi and Brett, they're still surrounded. But there are other things around them, too, bits of structures that have been knocked down, pieces littered all around the realm that could _connect_ and _click_ and –

"I'll build one!" he exclaims. "Cole, cover me!"

Cole nods, and Jay runs to the bricks he needs and starts to build.

His parents know he's a Master Builder, unlike Cole and Zane's parents, but they never put him on the registry, like Lloyd's mom did. Ma told him she didn't trust the police, and, "Why do they need a registry, anyway? I don't like it!" Jay wonders sometimes if he should tell them about Lord Business and the Super Secret Police, but they might get in trouble if they knew, and it would probably be awkward now that his cousin is in charge of the police. He thinks about this while he builds, letting his mind wander as his hands fit the pieces together. He knows what he's building, he has the image in his head, it's just a matter of finding the right pieces to fill in the space. The hovercraft quickly takes form.

The generator is the most important bit, and he has to focus to make sure it works. Pa likes to joke about the time Jay let his mind wander a little too much and the truck he was supposed to give an electric engine to ended up blowing up. Ma didn't think it was very funny. Jay pulls his thoughts back to the present and double-checks the generator before knocking down a pinwheel and grabbing the bricks from it.

"Got it!" he announces, and he jumps in the cockpit and turns the engine on. The hovercraft rumbles and rises off the ground – not as fast as he would like, but the generator is pretty heavy. "Okay, I just need to…"

He doesn't see Bad Cop anymore, but there are still plenty of robots, and the others are barely keeping them away from Heidi and Brett. Jay fumbles a bit with the controls before he manages to shoot a single robot. The guns stop firing.

"Oh, come on!" he shouts, hitting the stud to fire so hard it falls off and he has to put it back on. It still doesn't work. "I thought I fixed this problem!"

Nya lands on the windshield and peers inside at him. "Do the guns _still_ drain all your power? Uncool!"

"They don't drain that much power! I'm still in the air!"

She frowns. "I mean, I could rebuild it a little to override the blocks that are preventing the guns from accessing the power you're using to hover," she says, "but then you'd fall, and it'd be like Cole's tank, except worse 'cause you can't move."

Jay groans. "Fine! I mean – no, don't do that, I have an idea. Nya, go way over there!"

Nya nods and jumps down to the ground. Jay lands the hovercraft once he's sure no one is underneath it. Raising the hatch, he stands up and waves his arms in the air.

"Hey!" he yells. "Robots! I'm over here! I'm a Master Builder and everything!"

He gets the attention of a lot of the robots, and his friends as well. "Jay!" Heidi cries. "What are you doing?!"

"It's okay!" Lloyd says, and he whispers in her ear. Heidi's expression only becomes more horrified.

" _Jay_ –"

The robots advance towards him. Jay jumps up to the generator, removes a few key elements, and runs.

The hovercraft explodes.

It's a bigger explosion than he was expecting. Jay trips when the ground shakes, and it takes a few moments while the heat dissipates before he can summon the courage to look behind him.

His friends are okay. Nya waves at him from down below. Heidi and Brett look shaken, but they're fine, too. While he watches, Wyldstyle motions to the others and they all start running in the opposite direction from him.

"Hey! Wait!" Jay yells, and he gets to his feet moments before the net tangles around his legs.

* * *

"We should wait for Jay –" Brett protests.

"He'll be fine," Kai says. "He's done this before! Classic 'blow up the mech and run while the bad guys are distracted' maneuver. Let's go!"

They regroup with Emmet and Vitruvius. "What was that noise?" Emmet says. Wyldstyle makes a "zip it" gesture across her mouth, and they keep running.

The robots are swarming the realm, and the other Master Builders look like they're being overwhelmed. "We should help them!" Zane says.

"Sorry," Wyldstyle says, "but the most important thing is to get the Special out of here." She grimaces. "If you want to stay, I won't argue, but we could really use some more help."

Brett hears a muffled sob. When he looks at Heidi, she has tears running town her cheeks, and her face is contorted in grief. He wishes he could say something reassuring, but they need to keep running, and their children have made it clear what their decision is.

"Batman says he'll meet up with us at the entrance," Wyldstyle says. "Unikitty and Wonder Woman are with him."

"I'll text Jay," Cole says, and he takes out his phone while running.

"Great! Come on!"

Brett keeps looking behind them as they run. There's no sign of Jay.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bad day for jay. a bad jay day, perhaps

Another day, another disaster. Bad Cop growls under his breath and shoves the handcuffed Master Builder a little harder than he might have otherwise. "Keep moving," he says. "We'll get your friends soon enough."

"Wait!" the blue ninja pleads. "Don't arrest me! I'm your cousin!"

"Yeah, like I haven't heard that one before."

"No! I'm serious!"

Bad Cop rolls his eyes as he leads the prisoners onto the ship. The ninja keeps babbling. "My names Jay, um, my ma is your ma's sister, except they didn't talk for forty years because my ma did something bad? I don't really get what happened 'cause she won't tell me, but we're cousins!"

"Sure." Bad Cop make sure he's clear of the door before the robots start to close it. "Have fun in jail."

"Wait! Please!"

The hatch closes, and Bad Cop goes back to his own airship. Good Cop stirs in his head. _Bad, what if –_

"We've had enough family trouble without adding more to it." Bad Cop shakes his head. "Besides, he's probably making it up."

_That's a big probably._

"Please be quiet, Good." Bad Cop sits in the pilot's seat and turns the engine on. "We have a job to do."

* * *

Jay isn't going to cry. He's not going to cry. Some of the other prisoners are crying, but not many, and Jay isn't going to be one of them. He takes fast, shaky breaths, and listens to the other Master Builders whisper to each other.

"What's going to happen?" someone is asking.

"Metalbeard always talked about the Think Tank," someone else responds, "but we don't know what it is. No one's ever been able to get as far as he got."

The ship jerks and tilts, sending everyone stumbling to the side. Jay ends up falling into someone else dressed in blue, and he quickly staggers back as the ship rights itself. "Sorry!" he squeaks. "Sorry! I'm sorry!"

The astronaut laughs. "It's okay! My names Ben, but you can call me Benny – you're Jay, right?"

"Yeah," Jay says. "I, uh –"

"Are you really Bad Cop's cousin?"

"Shut up, Benny," someone snaps. "He was probably just making it up."

"I wasn't!" Jay insists. "I mean, I only found out he's my cousin like, yesterday, but it's true!"

"It's not something you should be proud of, then."

"Quiet, he's just a kid!"

He's going to cry. Jay feels tears welling up, and there's nothing he can do to stop them. He hunches over to try and muffle his sobs. He feels Benny give him a few awkward pats on the back with his cuffed hands.

His friends will rescue him, Jay tries to tell himself. Lloyd and the rest of the ninja will join up with the other Master Builders who escaped, or something, and they'll all come to rescue them.

But right now, he doesn't know what's coming, and there's no way out, and all Jay can do is cry.

* * *

They have to fight their way through a number of robots to get to the entrance. Batman, Unikitty, and Wonder Woman are already building something when they get there, though it's in such an early stage of completion that Heidi can't recognize what it is. She and Brett are mostly useless against the robots; Heidi can hardly see through her tears, not well enough to fight.

"We need to get out of here!" Wonder Woman says, lassoing a robot and sending it flying off the edge of the clouds. "Do you have the Piece?"

"Yes, ma'am," Emmet says quickly. "Right here!"

"Hey," Wyldstyle says. "You don't call _me_ ma'am."

"Do you want me to?"

"No."

"Hang on," Cole says. "We gotta wait for Jay – I mean, the Lightning Ninja. Green Ninja, has he texted you back yet?"

"I'm sorry, kids, but there's no time to wait," Wyldstyle says. "If you want to help us, we need to leave now."

"What?!" Lloyd yelps.

"Okay," Kai says. "No one panic. Jay can take care of himself."

"Can he?" Nya says. "Can he really?"

"Gosh, no. We need to go back for him!"

"We can't," Batman says bluntly. "We need to go now. You gonna build or not?"

The ninja huddle together. Heidi takes a deep breath and tries to dry her eyes. She can hear a little bit of what the kids are saying, and it sounds like they're coming to a decision to stay and find Jay.

Heidi grabs Lloyd out of the huddle and throws him over her shoulder.

"Hey!" Lloyd yells. "Put me down! What are you doing?!"

"When you're a police officer," Heidi says, "you have to make some hard decisions. I don't know what's going to happen if you stay here, but it's not going to be anything good."

"Whoa!" Kai runs in front of her. Heidi smoothly steps around him, towards the contraption the others are building. "Jay's our friend, and – he's supposed to be your nephew, right?!"

Nya wraps her arms around Heidi's waist and tries to drag her back. She's surprisingly strong, for someone who can't be older than fourteen. "We can't leave him!" Nya cries. "Put Lloyd down! Let's go find him!"

Lloyd starts screaming. "Put me down! Put me down! I'm not leaving Jay! Put me down!"

"You think I want to leave him?!" Heidi snaps. "We need to regroup! We will save him, I promise!"

"We need to save him _now!_ " Cole yells. He's taken off his headphones, and his face is contorted in anger. "We don't even know if he's captured! What if he's stuck somewhere?!"

"We don't have time for this!" Wyldstyle yells. "Get on the submarine!"

With Heidi carrying Lloyd, the other ninjas follow. Lloyd doesn't stop struggling until they're all on the craft, the other Master Builders continuing to build it up around them. Then, once the submarine starts moving and they begin rumbling towards the edge of the clouds, the fight leaves him and Lloyd starts to cry.

The submarine is barely finished before they hit the water. Once they do, the craft evens out, and Heidi finally allows herself to breathe. She puts down Lloyd, who crumples in a heap on the floor. The other ninja gather around him, Kai sitting up close and rubbing Lloyd's back as he sobs.

Heidi would feel guilty if she let herself, but she's still on edge, and she doesn't trust the Master Builders here. Best to stay numb for now. She steps away from the rest and finds a quiet spot to sit down and breathe. Brett sits down next to her.

"What's going to happen to my home?"

Heidi looks up. Unikitty is staring out the window at the murky water. "I've lived there all my life," they say, "and now I'm leaving. What's going to happen?"

The ninja look up, but don't move from where Lloyd lies. Wyldstyle and Wonder Woman exchange a worried glance. Emmet hesitates, then slowly walks over and hugs the princess. "I'm sorry, Unikitty," he says. "I hope everything will be –"

"Hey," Batman interrupts. "What is that? I didn't build that."

He points. Heidi thinks he's pointing at her and Brett for a moment before realizing he's pointing at what they're sitting on.

Emmet swallows. "It's, uh, a double decker couch. Everyone was building, and I'm supposed to be the Special, and Vitruvius said –"

"That really wasn't what I had in mind," says Vitruvius.

"It's a perfectly fine couch," Heidi says.

"If you're sitting on the bottom, maybe," Batman continues. "But if you're on the top middle, how are you going to get down? Plus, on the bottom, you'd have to look at a bunch of dangling legs."

"It's got cupholders for your drinks," Emmet says quietly. "And, uh, the seats flip up with coolers underneath, so…"

"Yeah, no. It's basically the worst idea in the history of everything."

Heidi wants to be angry. She pushes all her emotions down.

"This is your fault," Lloyd mumbles.

Heidi says nothing. She knows full well he's talking to her.

"If you hadn't taken the tracking thing, Jay wouldn't've been captured, and maybe we would've gotten out before the robots were everywhere." Lloyd sniffs and pushes Kai's hand off him. "If you hadn't been here, everything would've been fine! I wish I had never met you!"

Brett tries to speak. Heidi stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

Wonder Woman steps forward. "We're all very upset right now," she says, "but we need to focus. Ninjas, let's assume your friend was captured. Where would he be taken?"

She gives a pointed look to Wyldstyle, who blinks, nods, and speaks. "Lord Business' office tower. Probably in the Think Tank? That's where Metalbeard says his crew was taken, but we don't know anything about it."

"And we're all heading in that direction," Wonder Woman continues, "because in the office tower is the Kragle, and that's where we need to take the Piece of Resistance. So we need to make a plan. Alright, kids?"

Lloyd sits up and wipes his eyes. "Okay," he says.

"I have some ideas," Emmet says.

"All your ideas are bad," Batman says.

"Oh."

"Excuse me," Vitruvius says, "but why are my pants cold and wet?"

"Ew," Wyldstyle says.

"There's water in here!" Kai yells, jumping to his feet.

Heidi can't fully comprehend what's happening. There's water pooling on the floor, and as she and Brett watch in horror, the walls creak and groan and more water bursts through the cracks.

"The walls are crying!" Unikitty cries.

"We can plan later," Wonder Woman says quickly. "Everyone! We need to –"

A jet of water hits her in the face, cutting her short.

Brett is clutching her tight. Heidi doesn't know what to do. They're going to die, she realizes through the sounds of the others panicking, clinging to the double decker couch as it begins to float. They're going to die and she's never going to see her children again, never going to know why they've done what they have, never going to –

Nya throws her arms out, and the water stops.

The submarine quiets. The hull is still groaning, but all the water is doing is sloshing back and forth; it's stopped rising. Nya is breathing hard, the water up to her waist, and once everyone stops panicking, they all turn to her.

"Sis?" Kai says. "What are you doing?"

"Dunno," says Nya through gritted teeth, "but we're not drowning!"

"You appear to be using some sort of power we're not familiar with," Zane says. "Maybe you're controlling the water?"

"I panicked, okay?! Stop talking, I need to concentrate!"

"Hey, guys," Batman says loudly. "We're still sinking. Anyone have any powers to fix that?"

When she glances out the window, Heidi realizes he's right. The ocean outside is getting darker and darker.

"I didn't even know we had powers," Cole says. "Nya's the Water Ninja – does it have something to do with our call signs? Earth Ninja, Fire Ninja, Ice Ninja –"

"We need to get out of here before we sink too far," Wonder Woman says, pushing her wet hair out of her face. "I have an idea. Everyone, listen carefully…"

* * *

They find pieces of the submarine floating in the ocean. Good Cop keeps trying to switch in; Bad Cop forces him back. The only thing Good Cop would do is start to panic, and they can't afford to do that in front of their robots.

"No survivors detected," the micromanagers inform him.

They didn't find their parents in Cloud Cuckooland. If they were on that sub –

"The Piece of Resistance is down there somewhere!" Bad Cop barks. "Scuba Cops, drain the entire ocean if you have to! We've got to find that piece!"

Good Cop tries to take control again. _We could stay here, oversee the search –_

" _We_ are going to take these prisoners back to Lord Business," Bad Cop says sharply. "That's our top priority. The Special is gone, and so is everyone – everyone who was with him!"

His voice catches on the last part – he grits his teeth and hopes none of the robots noticed. If they did, they don't comment on it.

* * *

Skeleton-shaped robots take them all off the ships and escort them into the tower. The halls are filled with bright, white light, and Jay huddles close to Benny as the doors in front of them open.

"Hello, everybody!" a voice says, a voice that Jay has only heard through television speakers in his Ma and Pa's trailer. Pa used to say he would build a new television for them, but he stopped after he cut the power for two days and the water pump didn't work so they had to take showers at a friend's house. So Jay has only seen Business in low-quality, grainy screens, giving pleasant speeches to the world he's the president of.

He's never seen Lord Business like this.

"Greetings, all," Business says, a grin stretching across his face. "Welcome to my Think Tank."

Jay swallows hard and looks up.

The Think Tank is huge, with must be hundreds of tiny cells covering the walls, only enough space for one person with electrodes attached to their head, their desperate eyes staring down at the new prisoners, hoarse voices crying – "Help… help us…"

Some of the Master Builders are starting to cry again. Jay tells himself he won't be one of them, and then he feels tears well up anyway.

Superman struggles all the while the skeletrons drag him to a cell – they must have Kryptonite or something, because there would be no way they could restrain him otherwise. "All the Master Builders you captured over the years," he says as the robots strap him down, "you brought them here?!"

"You're a very perceptive person, Superman!" Business grins and his boots extend, raising him up even higher. "They come up with all the instructions for everything in the universe. Robots, are we nearly done?!"

Jay realizes with a jolt that he's next in line to be put into a cell. "No!" he cries, feeling tears fall down his cheeks as the robots grab him roughly. "Wait! Please! I – I'm not on the registry, I'm not –"

"Video from the robots clearly shows you demonstrating Master Builder abilities," Business says, and – no no no he's talking to _him_ Jay doesn't want Business to talk to him – "I don't care if you weren't on the registry, because you sure should've been! Remind me of your name? I'd like to have a talk with your parents about this."

" _No!_ "

"That's not a name I'm familiar with. Let's try again. Robots, strap him in."

Jay screams as the robots force him down and click the restraints around his hands. The electrodes are attached to his head – he can feel the tingle of electricity running through them. He thinks he's going to be sick. The cell moves, ascending high into place with the rest of the cells, and Jay screams the whole way. He keeps screaming when the cell stops moving.

"Are you quite done yet?" Business says. "I have some very important – whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute." To Jay's relief, he turns his attention away and focuses on a single empty cell. "Where's the Special?!" Business demands.

"The Special and the Piece of Resistance are on the bottom of the ocean," Bad Cop says, quickly walking into the room with a few stray Master Builders.

"Wait," Business says, and he takes one huge step towards him. "Are you telling me you don't have him?"

Bad Cop stays stiff and straight, looking up at his boss. "The scuba team is looking for his remains as we speak," he says.

Business walks slow steps around him. "Bad Cop, he could still be alive! The piece could still be out there! And you're telling me you don't have him?"

Bad Cop averts his eyes briefly, looking down at the floor. "The only thing left of the Special and his friends was a double decker couch."

"…wait, hold on." Business blinks. "A double decker _couch?_

"Yes, sir."

"Really? So it's like a bunk bed couch, is that what it's like? That's weird."

Jay tries not to cry. He doesn't want Business to notice him again. He's glad that the ninja hood hides most of his face, even if the tears in his eyes are visible. A whimper escapes him. Business doesn't notice, still going on about what a horrible concept a double decker couch is.

"Hey," a voice whispers beside him. "Jay? Are you okay?"

Jay can't move his head to see who it is, but he recognizes Benny's voice. "Not really," he says, his voice trembling.

"It's gonna be okay," Benny says unconvincingly. "I mean – I don't know what happened, but your friends weren't captured, right? They can still save you! And everyone else!"

"If they were – if they were with the Special –"

"I mean, Bad Cop didn't find the Special, right? I bet they all got away and Bad Cop just doesn't want to say it!"

Somehow, Jay doesn't think that's likely. If Bad Cop thinks the Special is dead – there must be a reason for that, right? Jay sniffs. There's snot dripping out of his nose, and he can't move his hands to wipe it away.

"It'll be okay," Benny says. "It's just – it's just gonna be tough for a while, okay? I'm scared, too, but we're going to be okay."

"Okay," Jay whispers.

He thinks of Lloyd, and Cole, and Zane and Nya and Kai and his secret aunt and uncle and everyone else who wasn't captured, and he finds it within himself to hope they're okay.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls remember to comment if you enjoy this, comments fuel me

Heidi and Brett are ordered into the couch. They protest, but Wonder Woman insists – they're the oldest, apart from Vitruvius, and they might not be able to handle the swimming if something goes wrong with the group that can't fit in the couch. Lloyd doesn't go with them. He watches as they get into the coolers Emmet built into the couch, along with Emmet, Wyldstyle, Vitruvius, and Unikitty.

Once everyone's in place, Wonder Woman turns to the ninja and Batman. "Are we ready?" she asks.

Nya is still frozen in the same position, keeping the water from flooding the sub with the powers she just discovered. Despite the strain on her face, she nods and gives Wonder Woman a thumbs up.

"Is this a bad time to say I can't swim very well?" Kai says.

"Hopefully, none of us will need to swim much at all," Wonder Woman says. "If we're all ready… Water Ninja, now."

Nya takes a deep breath, and the submarine breaks apart around them.

* * *

Lloyd sputters and spits out water. Kai is yelling, "Are you okay?!" in his ear, and Lloyd is trying to say he's fine but his mouth keeps going underwater and it's really, really dark, and his head feels like it's splitting open, and –

More hands grab him. Lloyd feels long hair brush his face as someone gingerly touches his head. "You might have a concussion," Wonder Woman says. "We'll check on that once we're at the surface."

Lloyd manages to speak. "Where are we?"

"Underwater," comes Batman's voice.

"Oh." That was the plan all along, Lloyd remembers. Nya would use her water powers to keep the air bubble around them and bring them back to the surface. Now that his eyes are adjusting to the dark, he can see Cole, Kai, and Zane clustered around him, treading water and looking at him with concerned expressions. Nya is a little ways away, her face screwed up in concentration. The distant light from the surface gives everything an eerie glow.

"My head hurts," Lloyd says.

Batman snorts. "Yeah, a piece of the sub beaned you in the head. Freaked your friends out for a moment, too."

"You're okay, right, bro?" Kai asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Head just hurts." Lloyd pulls out of Wonder Woman's grip. "We're going up now, right?"

"It's a little more complicated than that," Wonder Woman says. "Bad Cop is going to be searching the wreckage. Your friend there is listening in to their radios."

"He hasn't found the others," Zane says. "Not yet, anyway. He's having the scuba cops search the ocean, so we need to be careful about that."

"Did he say anything about Jay?" Lloyd blurts out.

Zane is quiet for a moment. "No," he says. "He mentioned the prisoners, but with no identifying details."

"What did he say about the prisoners?!"

"Only that he was taking them to Lord Business." Zane's usual cheeriness is gone, and his tone is serious. "I will keep monitoring the situation. I'll let you know if anything changes."

"How long do we stay down here?" Nya says. "I don't know how long I can keep this up!"

Wonder Woman glances up. "Ice Ninja, are we safe to surface?"

Zane beeps a few times and says, "We've moved far enough away that the search hasn't reached here yet."

"Then let's surface and meet up with the others."

* * *

When they surface, Nya floats on her back to rest while Cole and Kai keep an eye on her. Despite Lloyd's protests, Zane helps him stay afloat, since everyone is worried about his head injury. Lloyd grumbles and pulls his hood down farther over his head.

"Where are we exactly?" Batman asks.

Wonder Woman frowns. "I… don't know. We had to move pretty far to get away from the scuba cops. Ice Ninja, do you know?"

"I believe we are in the Endless Sea," Zane says.

"That's not really helpful."

"Wait, really?" Nya uprights herself and swims over. "No, uh – the Endless Sea is the ocean around Ninjago. It's not actually, like, a sea that never ends."

"Got it," says Wonder Woman. "So we're in the Ninjago area. That is helpful, though it's a little far from Octan Tower."

"Well, we're not gonna swim all the way," Cole says. "We should probably get to land and build a boat or something."

"I see a boat!" Kai says.

Everyone looks where he's pointing. Sure enough, a motorboat is zipping across the water. "Great!" says Wonder Woman. "Let's get their attention."

"Put your hood back on, Kai," Lloyd says. "If we're close to Ninjago, people will recognize us. Why'd you even take it off?"

"'Cause! It was soaked!"

"So's everything else –"

It takes longer than they would've liked, but whoever's driving the boat notices their yelling and shouting and turns towards them, slowing down to approach them at a safe speed. "Finally!" Batman says. "Hopefully they're not Business' bots, 'cause that would suck."

"Lord Business' robot army use a radio frequency that I'm not detecting here," Zane says. "I think we're safe."

Lloyd squints at the boat. Something about it seems familiar, though that's probably just because it's a Ninjago-styled boat. Except it isn't, not really – it's a little bigger than a standard motorboat, and it's got odd designs painted on the side, a bunch of white triangles that look like teeth.

The realization fills him with horror.

"Oh no," Lloyd says.

"What is it?" Wonder Woman asks.

Lloyd takes a deep breath. "It's one of my dad's boats," he says. "Lord Garmadon."

* * *

They don't fight. Even with two superheroes on their side, they're at a clear disadvantage. Lord Garmadon's General Number Seventeen fishes them out of the water and brings them back to the volcano base.

At least it's warm, Lloyd thinks. The water was cold, and they were shivering all throughout the boat ride. Surrounded by the generals, the ninja cluster together, still soaking wet, while they wait for Lord Garmadon to arrive.

"This sucks," Batman says loudly. "What's taking him so long?"

Wonder Woman shushes him.

"Honestly?" Kai says. "He can take all the time he wants. I am not looking forward to this."

Lloyd shudders. Maybe he won't show up, he thinks. Maybe they'll just get locked up and Garmadon won't bother to talk to them or anything.

"Look at that! You really did grab them!"

Garmadon bursts in the room, a grin stretching across his face. "Excellent work, General Number Seventeen!" he says. "I'm promoting you to General Number Sixteen! Old General Number Sixteen, you're Seventeen now. A little friendly competition never hurt anyone." Garmadon claps both set of hands together. "Now! What do we do with you?"

Wonder Woman tenses and steps in front of Lloyd and the other ninja. "If you hurt them –"

Garmadon rolls his eyes. "Calm down, they're like, what, twelve? I'm not gonna hurt a bunch of kids. I mean, yeah, I'm gonna lock them up so they can't mess with my plans anymore, but c'mon, lady."

"Locking us up is still bad," Cole says. "We've got family to go home to!"

"I thought you disliked your dads," Zane says.

"Ha ha, Ice Ninja this is not the time."

"Well, you should've thought about that before you started messing with my plans!" Garmadon laughs. "Hope you like being prisoners, 'cause that's what you're gonna be for like… uh…" He frowns. "Y'know, however long. I didn't really think this far."

Batman growls under his breath and moves beside Wonder Woman while the ninja cluster together. Kai puts a hand on Lloyd's shoulder.

"You act like we won't put up a fight!" Nya shouts.

Garmadon shrugs. "Sure, you can try. Generals, how about we unmask these kids so we can let their parents know we've got them?"

Lloyd panics.

"Wait!" he shouts as the generals start to advance towards them. "Wait! Don't! We –" His thoughts are jumbled and all he thinks is that this isn't fair, he deserves to have a childhood and so does Jay, and it's not fair that there are two lords who want to capture him and everyone else, and –

An idea pops into his head.

"We need your help!" Lloyd yells.

Garmadon blinks. The generals stop in their tracks. His friends look at him in confusion.

"I'm sorry," Garmadon says. "You need my help? Am I hearing this right?"

Lloyd can feel his heart pounding. "We – we're fighting – there's – this other guy – he –"

Wonder Woman steps in. "Are you familiar with Lord Business?" she says.

"Hang on," Batman says. "Do we get a moment to talk about this? Privately?"

"Nope," says Garmadon says. "You get to talk now, in front of me. Business, Business… yeah, I've heard of the guy. Hard not to, when he's president of the entire world. Didn't know he was called Lord. What about him?"

Lloyd swallows hard. "He's trying to end the world with the Kragle," he says. "And we can't beat him. He – he took the Lightning Ninja, and everyone else, and – and –"

"We don't have the numbers to defeat him ourselves," Wonder Woman says. "We need to reunite with the other people who escaped, and go into Octan Tower to disarm the Kragle."

"Y'know," Batman says, "I don't think this is a great idea."

"Uh, seconded?" Cole says. "I mean, asking Lord Garmadon for help? Ll –" He catches himself. "Green Ninja, are you nuts?"

"Do you have any better ideas?" Lloyd snaps. "We can't fight our way out without our mechs! We can't leave the Special and everyone else on their own! And Lord Business has a whole robot army! What am I supposed to do?!"

"So you're desperate." Garmadon grins. "Alright, I can work with that! Let's make a deal, kids. I help you with your Business problem, and you let me take over Ninjago."

"No!" the ninja all yell in unison.

"Well, I guess I'll lock you up and take over Ninjago anyway. Generals –"

"Wait!" Lloyd yells. "There's – there's something else! That we can offer!"

Garmadon rolls his eyes. "Ninjago City's really all I want, and I can take that without you. I mean, it'd be easier if you didn't fight while I locked you up, but…"

"I can tell you where your son is!"

The other ninja are too shocked to speak. Batman and Wonder Woman exchange confused glances. Lloyd fights down the dread and fear welling up inside him as he meets Garmadon' wide-eyed gaze.

"How do you know I have a son?" Garmadon demands.

"Everyone in Ninjago City knows about _Lloyd Garmadon_ ," says Lloyd, and he tries to say his name with the disgust he knows the other kids have for him. "No one would take that name for fun."

"Luh-loyd."

"What?"

Garmadon frowns. "It's pronounced ' _Luh_ -loyd. Ell-ell-oh-why-dee. I named him, I should know."

"You don't say both Ls," Nya says. "And also, I dunno what the Green Ninja is thinking, but we're not gonna –"

Lloyd cuts her off. "If you help us, I'll tell you where your son is, and you can reunite with him and be a family, or leave again and –"

"Excuse me?" Garmadon says. "I'm not the one who left!"

Lloyd sputters incoherently for a moment. When he can talk, he finds he has no words to say.

"It was my ex who left," Garmadon continues, oblivious to Lloyd's shock. "I was going to build our son's future on the ashes of Ninjago City, and train him to be a great warlord, so all of Ninjago would learn to fear the Garmadon family name – and she just –" His voice catches. "– she took him, and they were gone."

Silence falls over them. Lloyd opens his mouth, and closes it, and doesn't say anything for a long, long moment.

"If you help us defeat Lord Business," he finally says, "you can do all that."

"Okay," says Garmadon. "Okay. Yeah. Sure. I'll do it."

"Really?" Kai blurts out. "Seriously?"

"Yeah! Seriously! Don't make a big deal out of it." Garmadon turns around and gestures at the generals. "General Number One, bring these guys to the strategy room. I'll be there in, like, fifteen minutes? Whatever."

"With all due respect," Wonder Woman says, "time is of the essence. Lord Business plans to unleash the Kragle this Tuesday, and –"

"Yeah, yeah, we've got time, don't worry about it. Can't formulate a decent strategy on an empty stomach!"

Lloyd's heart still feels like it's going to burst out of his chest. He takes a few deep breaths to try and calm himself. It doesn't help. Everything will be fine, he tells himself, ignoring the other ninja's concerned eyes on him. His dad will help them defeat Business, and he'll – he'll work something out when everything is over. Everything is going to be fine.

* * *

"All clear," Wyldstyle says.

Brett pushes up the lid of the cooler. Emmet's double decker couch is floating in the middle of the ocean, and none of Lord Business' robots are nearby. Heidi peeks her head out from her own cooler, and locks eyes with Brett. He tries to smile at her – they're alive, after all. That's worth celebrating. She looks away.

"We're not dead!" Emmet says, and he climbs out of his cooler and nearly falls into the ocean. "Whoops –"

"Yay!" Unikitty exclaims from the upper seats, moments before Brett hears them retch over the side.

"Guess the double decker couch wasn't totally useless after all," Wyldstyle says. "Emmet, you… you saved us."

"I knew you could do it," Vitruvius says.

Emmet grins. "Awesome! But, uh…" His grin fades. "…what do we do now?"

Silence falls upon them, broken only by the sound of the wind and the waves. "Uh," Wyldstyle says. "I don't really know."

"I hear something," Vitruvius says.

"Are you sure?" Emmet looks around. "I don't hear anyth _iiiaaagh!_ "

The ship materializes out of the fog, crashing down close enough to hit them with the edge of the splash. Heidi flinches. Brett wordlessly takes her hand.

"Ahoy!" Metalbeard's voice bellows, and as the ship tilts, he leans out and scoops the double decker couch out of the water. "Ye look like ye be needing a hand!" he says, placing them on the deck.

"Metalbeard!" Unikitty hops down from the top bunk and smiles up at Metalbeard. "You came back!" they say. "I thought you said we were a lost cause!"

"Ye are!" Metalbeard stomps closer. "But this bedoubled land couch changed me mind!"

"Really?" Emmet says brightly.

"I saw Lord Business' forces completely overlook it," Metalbeard says, "which means we need more ideas like it!"

"Thank you!"

"Ideas so bad that no one could ever think they could be useful!"

"Oh."

Heidi and Brett get off the couch and shiver; the sea breeze chills them in their soaked clothes. Heidi takes out her phone, but it wasn't waterproof, and doesn't turn on.

"Should probably put that in rice," Brett says.

Heidi throws it overboard.

The movement catches the attention of the others, and they all turn towards them. Brett can feel Metalbeard's eyes on them. Heidi is breathing hard, her hands clenched into fists.

"So," Metalbeard says. "Ye brought these two with ye?"

"Uh, yeah," says Wyldstyle. "I know they're the cops' parents, but –"

"They be _what?!_ "

"– oh. You didn't know that. Okay."

"I don't want to hear it," Heidi says. "Not from you. Not from anyone."

"Don't want to hear what?" Emmet asks, which does not help the situation.

"Nothing – nothing about our sons. Not right now. I know –" Her voice trembles. "I know what they've done, what they're still doing, I know now – after all this time of _not_ knowing – and I don't want to hear it. I want my boys back. I want them to tell me none of this is – is _real,_ that there's something we don't understand, something we didn't know. I want –" She hiccups. "I want my boys back!"

Brett hugs her. Heidi breaks down sobbing in his arms.

"Before we do anything," Wyldstyle says, "we need to find Batman, Wonder Woman, and the ninja. Even with the Piece, we can't do anything without our full team."

"She's right," Vitruvius says. "Finding them is our first priority. Do they have a phone number we can call?"

Heidi did, until she threw her phone into the water. Brett doesn't say this. All he says is, "If we do, I don't know it."

"I've got Batman's number," Wyldstyle says. "Since we're dating and all. Give me a sec."

* * *

Wyldstyle borrows a phone from Metalbeard, after putting her own cell in rice. They all sit below deck while she calls him, Metalbeard gathering towels for everyone.

"I have more ideas," Emmet is saying. "I mean, I don't know if they're good? Or really, what the, uh, criteria for being good is? Like, I didn't think the double decker couch was useless, but –"

"Shush," Wyldstyle hisses. She raises her voice. "Hey, babe! How're you doing?"

Brett sits with Heidi some distance away from the others. Heidi is still crying, her body trembling. Brett keeps an arm around her.

"Reinforcements are great!" Wyldstyle says. "Uh, where'd you find a whole army from, though? Oh, they're from Ninjago? Alright, I guess." She pauses. "Okay, babe, what aren't you telling me?"

"Hm," says Vitruvius. "There's only one army rivaling Lord Business' in Ninjago, and that's Lord Garmadon's."

Heidi snaps her head up to stare at him. "What?!"

Wyldstyle frowns. "Babe, are we talking about Lord Garmadon? Isn't he a bad guy? Alright. Alright. Yes, I'm glad to know you're not dead, I mean, I wasn't really _worried,_ 'cause you're _Batman._ Hey, give me a sec."

She covers the microphone and looks up at the rest of them, "Apparently, Garmadon picked them up from the ocean, and was going to lock them up until the Green Ninja was able to convince him to help fight Lord Business. I don't know how well he's gonna work with us, but considering it was 'get him to join the fight' or 'get locked up in his volcano dungeon,' I think they made an okay choice."

"And now we be working with him." Metalbeard sighs and sits down on a chair that breaks instantly beneath him. "Yarr, I ain't be looking forward to that."

Heidi looks back and forth between Wyldstyle, Metalbeard, and then up at Brett. "What did Lloyd do?" she whispers. "What do we do?"

"We don't have a lot of options," Brett says. "Best thing to do is go along with everyone else. I'd say that's our best shot at…"

"Saving our sons," Heidi says. "We – we need to save them from whatever Lord Business has done to them."

"Heidi, dear…"

"What?"

Brett takes a deep breath. "I'm afraid, Heidi," he whispers. "I'm afraid our sons are no longer the boys we know. I'm afraid they're in too far to be saved, now. I hope they're not, Heidi, I really do, but… what do we do if we have to choose between our children and the fate of the universe?"

Heidi looks at the others, but they aren't paying attention to them. She leans closer to Brett and lowers her voice.

"I will choose our children," she says. "Every time."


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what the heck is up everypony here's chapter 12

They have to meet up with the others at some point. Batman gets a call from Wyldstyle in the middle of the strategizing with Garmadon's army, and he walks away from the table without excusing himself. Lloyd takes deep breaths while Batman explains the situation.

"We need to regroup with the others," Wonder Woman says; the ninja are all too out of their element to say much anything. Lloyd is beyond grateful that Wonder Woman is taking control of the situation. "It would be best if we leave soon. Taco Tuesday is coming up fast, and we shouldn't leave the Special and the others out of the plans."

"Who is the Special, anyway?" Garmadon says. "Like, what does he do? Just carry around some Piece until it's time to disarm the Kragle?"

"Basically," Batman says.

"Cool. Is he, like, some fierce warlord? Or vigilante superhero?"

"I wish."

"He's just some guy," Lloyd says. "I mean, he found the Piece of Resistance by accident."

"Wasn't there a prophecy or something? Someone said something about a prophecy." Garmadon shrugs. "Whatever, prophecies are usually nonsense, anyway. Just as long as he can fight."

"He can't," says Kai.

"Ah. Good to know."

"Let's set up a meeting spot," says Wonder Woman. "Metalbeard's ship –"

Garmadon wrinkles his nose. "Oh, gross. We're working with Metalbeard? Man, I hate that dude."

"You know Metalbeard?" Nya blurts out. "How?!"

"What can I say? He's a pirate, we have some run-ins. Not pleasant ones. It's so weird how he's taller than me but still only has two arms! I mean, I could fit, like, eight arms if I had the body he does! Then I'd be a spider!" Garmadon pauses. "A spider with legs."

"Uh," says Cole.

Wonder Woman steers the conversation back on course. "Batman, where is Metalbeard now?"

Through Batman, they manage to pick a spot to meet at. "Great," says Garmadon. "We have time for lunch beforehand?"

"No!" says Lloyd. "We should go now! If we –"

"Pipe down, Green Ninja, I don't appreciate being spoken to like that."

Lloyd swallows hard and doesn't say anything more.

"He's right," Wonder Woman says. "The Green Ninja, I mean. We need to leave."

"You've been eating this entire time," Zane adds.

Garmadon picks up another whole fish. "What can I say? I've got a lot of muscle to feed!"

He bites into the head while locking eyes with Wonder Woman, who looks appropriately disgusted.

"Okay," Garmadon says once the fish is consumed. "Now we're ready. General Number One, prepare the fleet! And hey, ninja – come with me, I've got something to show you!"

"Stranger danger," says Zane.

"What?"

"We'll all go," Wonder Woman says, and she motions for Batman to follow them. Batman keeps staring at his phone, texting someone, and doesn't look up until they've left the room without him.

"So!" Garmadon says loudly while Batman runs to catch up. "You ninja fight with your weird mech things, right? Like, the tricked up firetruck and all the other junk?"

"They're not junk!" Kai says.

"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, if we're gonna be working together to take down Lord Business, I've got some _real_ mechs you can use."

Cole raises an eyebrow. "Better than my tank?"

"Better than anything you could put together, that's for sure!"

"Yeah right," says Nya. "I mean, unless you've got Master Builders in your army, I really doubt they could come up with anything better than us."

Garmadon laughs. "You don't need to be a Master Builder to build!"

"Excuse me?" Batman says. Garmadon rolls his eyes and pushes open the next door without answering.

There's a bunch of scientists in the room here, and they all snap their heads up when Garmadon strolls in. "You got my message, right?" he says to them. "Let's get those mechs out here! Chop chop!"

Lloyd spots a window in the room, looking out on what looks like a docking area. Lloyd can see boats and weird shark-themed mechs on the ground far beneath them. While he watches, a metal gate rumbles open and _something_ comes into view.

"Alright, Fire Ninja," Garmadon says. "This one's for you."

Kai presses his face to the window. "Whoa!"

The mech is clearly based off a lobster, with red armor and two enormous claws. It has six legs and an array of guns on its back, and the cockpit is settled in between the claws. Kai gapes at it.

"I can't believe it!" he says. "And I get to drive this?!"

"It's not that cool," Lloyd mutters.

"It's pretty cool, dude," Nya says, looking out beside her brother. "What do I get?"

Garmadon grins. "If you like that, wait until you see _this!_ Here's yours, Water Ninja!"

The next mech is smaller, but looks just as deadly. It rolls out, a purple dome with spikes covering its surface. A window clear of spikes is visible in the front.

"Whoa!" Nya says softly. "So it's, like, a sea urchin?"

"Something like that," Garmadon says. "I know it's not your style, but I don't really care enough to build entirely new mechs, so I'm just grabbing old ones out of storage."

"I think I remember fighting that one," Cole says. "I tried to blow it up and it shot those spikes everywhere."

"Yeah, it does that." Garmadon claps his hands and motions through the window, and the mech is taken away. "Alright, here's yours, Earth Ninja."

It's a turtle mech. "Cool," says Cole. "What does it do?"

"Not much, honestly." Garmadon points out the features while he talks. "The head has guns on it, and it can like, swivel around, but honestly, it's main quality is that it's super tough – nothing can get through that shell."

"How fast does it go?"

"About as fast as your tank."

"So… not fast."

"Yeah."

"What about me?" Zane asks.

"Don't worry, I've got something for all of you. I mean, the number of mechs I have in storage is pretty unbelievable, honestly."

Garmadon motions again. The turtle mech is taken away, and the next mech comes out. It's patterned in black-and-white spots, and has jagged teeth painted on the sides. "Now," Garmadon says, "this may look like a shark, but it's actually –"

"An orca," Nya says. "We've been through middle school, dude."

"Man, I keep forgetting you guys are like, babies. How do I keep losing to you?"

"'Cause we're awesome and you suck," Lloyd says.

Garmadon rolls his eyes. "I'm pretty sure it's just 'cause I'm going easy on you. Don't want to beat up a bunch of kids, you know?"

"One of your generals punched me in the face," Cole says.

"Yeah, but then you broke his arm, so I say we're even."

"I get an orca mech," Zane says. "That's cool."

"Whatever," Lloyd says. "So what do I get?"

"Now, now, Green Ninja! Maybe I won't give you one after all! I mean, you did say I suck."

Lloyd grits his teeth. "Fine," he says. "I don't need your stupid mechs, anyway! I'm too awesome of a ninja for that!"

"It's okay, Lloyd," Kai says. "You can share mine. I'll take one claw, and you can –"

"Nah, I'm just messing with you." Garmadon claps his upper set of hands. "Bring out the final mech!"

Lloyd shouldn't even bother looking, he thinks. He should just leave and go join up with the Special and everyone else on his own, or something. But curiosity gets the better of him, and he looks out the window.

The mech is a dragon.

"I saved the best for last, of course!" Garmadon says, while Lloyd stares at it. "It's even green! I mean, sea serpents are usually green, I think? Or maybe dark blue. I've never actually seen a sea serpent. Don't tell my brother, he'll find out I was lying to him some hundred years back when we were at the beach and I told him a sea serpent would bite his toes off."

It still looks like a dragon, even with shark teeth and fins on the side of its head. It's long, and has engines on the side that probably means it flies. Its body is covered in frills, with a long, flowing tail that makes it the longest mech by far. "Whoa," says Lloyd.

"Impressed, huh?"

Lloyd jerks his head up to stare at his father with wide eyes. Garmadon grins down at him, showing all his teeth. "So!" he says. "Still think I suck?"

For as long as he can remember, Lloyd has been bullied for who his dad is. Always getting picked on, always told he was bad, always fighting to be better than what everyone thought he was. Over and over, he's wished that his father could be someone else. Maybe like Jay's dad, he thinks. Or maybe even like one of Cole's dads, even though Cole says they suck. Or Zane's dad, even if Dr. Julien barely pays attention to his son's life – he's still _there,_ and he's _probably_ not evil.

But for the first time, Lloyd thinks…

…maybe his dad isn't all bad?

"I dunno," he says. "I'll have to try it out, first."

"Smart kid!" Garmadon says. "Alright, let's go meet with the others, do some stuff, and end Lord Business' reign of terror once and for all!"

"Do we get mechs, too?" Batman asks.

"Haha! No."

* * *

Heidi doesn't know what to do.

She doesn't let herself think she can't do anything. There must be something – there _has_ to be something. She can get her children out of the horrible situation they're in, and… and…

Her imagination fails her when she tries to work out the details. But what's important is that she needs to see them, needs to hold Gilligan and Malcolm in her arms and tell them that everything will be alright, that she will make sure everything will be alright, by her own hands, by her own will.

She wraps her arms around herself and shivers. It's cold, out here on the ocean, even now that her clothes are dry. Brett is staring out at the sea, standing beside her. The Master Builders are gathered in a cluster; Heidi can see Emmet and Vitruvius a little ways away, talking to each other. She doesn't mean to eavesdrop, but the wind carries their conversation over to her.

"I have ideas," Emmet is saying, "I just don't think they're, y'know, good ideas."

Vitruvius' voice is soft, but firm. "As the Special, people will be looking to you for ideas. Once the others get here, you will have to be the leader."

"I, uh, don't think anyone looks to me for… anything."

"Emmet, the prophecy chose you."

"I know, I know… I'm the Special, so I know I _can_ do all these things, it's just…" He sighs. "…hard."

"It will get easier, Emmet, I promise. All you need to do is believe."

"Okay," Emmet says, and then, with more force, "Okay! I can do it! Thanks, Vitruvius."

Heidi stops paying attention when she hears Unikitty pipe up.

"Hey, everybody!" they say. "I think I see them! Uh, what does Lord Garmadon's boat look like?"

"It be big, shark-themed, and stupid," Metalbeard says.

"You think sharks are stupid?" Wyldstyle says. "I mean, you've got one on your arm."

"The stupidity be unrelated to the sharks."

"It's definitely big," Emmet says, squinting out at the ocean. "And, uh, there's more than one? Not all of them are big, but they're, uh, all definitely shark-themed."

"They're all really mean-looking," Unikitty says. "Metalbeard, I like your ship much better. It's cute."

Metalbeard frowns and doesn't respond.

The ships are big, and there's definitely a lot of them. One of the bigger ones, with a grinning shark face painted on the bow, pulls up alongside Metalbeard. Heidi takes a deep breath and steels her mind.

"Alright!" a voice booms out. "General Number One, hit the music!"

Heavy metal is blasted out from every speaker. Metalbeard just shakes his head.

"I hate this guy already," Wyldstyle says.

Garmadon himself appears on the deck, looking all the same as he did on television back in Ninjago – how long ago had that been? A day, Heidi thought. It felt like months. The armor, the four arms, the toothy grin… Heidi sees a handful of generals appear behind him, all in various sea-creature themed outfits, but she can't see Lloyd, the other ninja, or the two superheroes anywhere.

"So!" Garmadon says. "Who's the boss, here?"

Vitruvius turns to Emmet, who looks like he's about to throw up.

Garmadon laughs. "Trick question! I'm not taking orders from anyone."

"Weren't you supposed to work with us?" Wyldstyle says.

Garmadon rolls his eyes and crosses all four of his arms. "I mean, yeah, sure, we'll come up with a plan together, and I'll do the plan, whatever – but I'm in charge of my own army, got it?"

"I have no objections," Emmet says.

Unikitty tilts their head. "Where's the Green Ninja? And all the other colored ninjas?"

"Over there." Garmadon points at another very large ship. "They wanted to stay with their mechs, and the other guys – guy and girl, sorry – they didn't want to leave those kids alone. So they're over there."

"And ye haven't brought them over here why?" Metalbeard asks.

"Metalbeard, my man!" Garmadon grins and completely ignores the question. "You look just as ugly as you ever have! What's your deal with this Lord Business?"

"His forces captured me entire crew and destroyed me old body."

"Cool! Anyway – yeah, I'll let the ninja know you're all waiting for them. Give me a sec." Garmadon picks up a megaphone. "HEY, NINJA KIDS! YOUR FRIENDS ARE WAITING FOR YOU!"

Heidi grimaces and covers her ears much too late to do any good.

"I really hate this guy," Wyldstyle says.

"I HEARD THAT!"

* * *

With their mechs, the generals leave them alone for the first time since they got captured, and Kai immediately turns to Lloyd. "Dude, what the heck?!"

"Leave me alone, Kai," says Lloyd.

"No! Dude!" Kai glances around for any sign of the generals, or worse, Garmadon himself, and lowers his voice. "I know these mechs are cool, and I know we didn't have a lot of options – but telling your _dad_ you'll hand yourself over to him –"

"I didn't say that!" Lloyd hisses. "All I said was that I'd help him find his son. That's it!"

"There's no way that's all he thinks," Nya says. "I mean – what makes you think he couldn't have found you on his own? It wouldn't be too hard to track down the only kid with the last name 'Garmadon' –"

"I don't wanna talk about this," Lloyd says.

"We kind of really should," says Cole. "I mean… what are you gonna do when this is over? What if he finds out you really are the Green Ninja?"

"General approaching," Batman says.

"Let's continue this conversation another time," Zane says.

Lloyd glares at him. "You mean _never._ "

"Incorrect."

The general informs them that they've joined with Metalbeard and their teammates. "Great," Wonder Woman says. "Thank you. Let's go."

Lloyd's had enough of uncomfortable conversations, so he doesn't try to talk to Heidi about Jay or what he said on the sub. He tries to avoid Heidi and Brett entirely, keeping close to his friends as they gather around Vitruvius and Emmet. When he looks over at them, he sees Heidi staring at him – Lloyd quickly looks away.

"So," Vitruvius says. "I believe –"

" _Incoming!_ "

Garmadon crashes down onto Metalbeard's deck in a crouch. "Ha!" he says, straightening up. "Couldn't hear you all the way up there! Now we can _really –_ "

"Who said ye could be on me ship?!" Metalbeard says, drawing his sword.

"I did," says Garmadon. "Really, we've been over this. I'm not taking orders from anyone."

"Metalbeard, put the sword away," Vitruvius says. "Lord Garmadon is, as of right now, an ally. So long as he agrees to help us, put aside your past grudges. For now."

Metalbeard grumbles, but does as Vitruvius says. Lloyd is struck by how weird the situation is – here they are, the protectors of Ninjago City, making a plan to fight Lord Business with the guy they protect Ninjago City _from_ – along with two superheroes, some Master Builders, a generic construction guy who's supposed to save the world, and Jay's aunt and uncle that none of them knew he had until recently.

He still doesn't look at Heidi.

"…anyway," Vitruvius says. "We should get to work. Emmet, as the Special, you should start us off. What ideas do you have to break into Octan Tower, place the Piece of Resistance on the Kragle, and save the universe?"

"Uh," Emmet says. "Well… we have a lot of people now, so… here's the plan."


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome To My Nice Fan Fic Have a Great Time
> 
> comments are loved & appreciated. moray crisis

"So," Business says, standing in front of his board of directors. "I move to use the Kragle to freeze the universe. Any objections?"

"No, sir," the robots say in unison.

"Didn't think so! I know this is a little weird, but it looks better on the paperwork if I go through the proper channels to end the world as we know it." He pauses. "Not that there will be anyone to, like, process the paperwork? Maybe I didn't think this through." Business frowns down at the table and crosses his arms "Not kragling the universe, I definitely thought that through, but like, this specific part."

"Man! You sure talk a lot!"

Business snaps his head back up. "Who are you?!"

"I'm so glad you asked!" Garmadon says, leaning against the water cooler. and using his lower two arms to pour himself a cup. "You can call me Lord Garmadon. I had this whole song planned, but security didn't like it when I tried to take my shark army through. Didn't like it when I cut their head off, either. But yeah, none of my army got in, so I don't have enough singers to do the song."

"Oh no," one of the robots says. "Poor Guardbot 189-2001."

"We knew them well," another robot chimes.

"Stop being so dramatic, we can restore them from their last backup, no problem." Business levels a glare at Garmadon. "More importantly, why are you here, and why haven't any of my guards shot you yet?"

"Questions, questions!" Garmadon laughs and pours his water on one of the robot directors' heads, causing them to short-circuit and slump onto the table. "I'm just here to chat. Your whole freezing the universe deal? I want in on that."

Business rolls his eyes. "I literally _just_ watched you shut down one of my directors. Why should I let you 'in' on kragling the universe?"

"We're both lords, ain't we? You're Lord Business, I'm Lord Garmadon – it could be great!"

"Not happening. Security!"

Five robots rush in. "Get this man out of my office and into a prison cell," Business says tiredly. "We'll deal with him later. Oh, and make sure the shark army he talked about is under control."

"We're on it!" one of the robot says, and they tackle Garmadon. Garmadon stands there and rolls his eyes while the robot clings to his side.

"Don't be so cheerful about it, you're supposed to be a mindless drone. Man, I shouldn't have programmed you with personalities." Business furrows his brow. "Hang on, are you supposed to be a robot… cat… unicorn?"

"Experimental prototype," another robot says hurriedly, before the uni-cat-bot can speak.

"Seriously? I think the Think Tank is leaking ideas into the rest of the tower." Business groans. "Look, I'm not gonna decommission you right now, but sometime before Taco Tuesday gets underway, you gotta re-upload yourself into a new body. How are you supposed to hold a gun if you don't have hands?"

"I stab them with my horn?" the uni-cat-bot suggests.

"Yeah, no, guns are better. Now get going! This weirdo isn't going to contain himself!"

The four humanoid robots and the uni-cat-bot surround Garmadon and lead him out of the room. "Buh-bye!" Garmadon says with a wave, and then the door slams shut.

Business sighs. "That was weird. Okay, where were we?"

* * *

"Okay," Wonder Woman says once the robots in the computer room are taken care of. "Metalbeard, do you know how to disable the shields?"

"Of course!" Metalbeard drops the crushed robot head and stomps over to the computers. "Can ye be disabling yon shields?"

"Disabling shields," the computer says.

"Great." Wonder Woman looks around. "So… is that all we do here?"

Metalbeard shrugs. "Guess so!"

"Alright. Guess we'll just sit here and make sure no robots _re_ -able the shields."

"Good idea."

* * *

"Ow!" Garmadon yelps while he walks. "Don't be so rough, Earth Ninja!"

"Not so loud," Cole whispers. "We're supposed to be Octan 'bots, remember?"

"Are you sure? Are you really sure? Because I don't think he bought the cat thing."

"Excuse you!" Unikitty hisses. "I am Princess Unikitty, and –"

Nya shushes them. "Focus! We gotta get to the Think Tank and find Jay while everyone else goes and puts the Piece of Resistance on the Kragle."

"What?" says a passing Octan bot.

"Nothing!" all five fake robots say in unison.

"Cool," says the real robot, and they walk away.

"So," Kai whispers once the robot is safely out of earshot. "Are we just gonna keep walking until we find something? Ice Ninja, what's the status on hacking the network?"

"I have accessed the tower floorplans," Zane says. "We should make a right turn up here."

"Great," says Garmadon. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

He breaks out of the grasps of the four ninja and starts running. "Hey!" the ninja yelp, and they start running after him, leaving Unikitty behind.

"Guys!" they hiss. "This isn't part of the plan! Guys! _Guys!_ "

* * *

"…and that's how I became Wonder Woman. How'd you become a pirate?"

Metalbeard leaned against the wall. "Well, I built me own ship, and everyone found out I be a Master Builder, which be fine up until Business came into power…"

"Yeah, I hear that," Wonder Woman says. "The whole Justice League got together to figure out what to do about him. Even some of the Marvel superheroes got involved! Can you believe it? I'd pay money not to have to work with the Avengers again."

"Ye would think with that many heroes, Business would be thrown out on the street!"

Wonder Woman shrugged. "You'd think, but here we are."

The last remaining robot pipes up. "I became an Octan robot because Lord Business programmed me that way."

Metalbeard turns to them and raises an eyebrow. "Ye be telling me Business programmed all the bots here?"

"We were built off a program that evolves and grows. Lord Business wrote the main program, then let us evolve on our own, and decommissioned all the bots that didn't conform. Like evolution."

"That seems wrong," says Wonder Woman. "Like, morally, and also, I'm not sure evolution works quite like that."

The robot shrugged. "It's just how we were made."

"Let's change the subject. Anyone up for a card game?"

* * *

"Kid, are you sure you're okay being part of the Kragle team?" Wyldstyle says.

"Of course I am!" Lloyd insists. "I'm the strongest member of the secret ninja force! I can do it!"

"Aren't you also the youngest member?" she points out.

"I'm almost thirteen, come on!"

Emmet blinks. "Oh wow, that's a lot younger than I thought. You know, I'm having second thoughts about this."

"Whatever," Lloyd grumbles, picking at his robot disguise. Wyldstyle wordlessly motions for him to stop.

"Okay," she says. "Are we all ready? Because I'd really like to get moving."

Despite his insistence that he can do this, Lloyd feels anxiety creeping up on him as they walk through the halls. He's visibly shorter than the other robots, and even though Unikitty told him it'd be fine – they were disguised as a robot, too, and they didn't look anything like the others – part of him was convinced his disguise wouldn't work. He would be recognized as the Green Ninja, and then they'd find out he was Lloyd Garmadon, too, and then his dad would find out about him and everything would be ruined – not to mention the world would _literally end._

Having his hood off, even if his face is covered in crinkly metal, doesn't help.

"Up ahead is a service elevator," Emmet whispers, pointing. "It'll take us to where the Kragle is kept."

"Are you sure?" Wyldstyle whispers.

"Positive. I may have not worked on this exact tower, but I've worked on _hundreds_ like them. This will take us to the top."

Lloyd frowns. "What floor are we on again?"

"I think it was…" Wyldstyle furrows her brow. "Shoot, I've lost track."

"It's sixty-nine," Emmet says.

"Nice," says Lloyd.

"Wow," Wyldstyle says, "you really are twelve."

They reach the elevator. Lloyd rocks side to side during the ride until Wyldstyle shushes him. He shushes her right back – he wasn't even making any noise! – and Emmet has to quickly step between them before their wordless argument escalates.

The top room is filled with robots.

"Don't panic," Emmet whispers when Wyldstyle and Lloyd both freeze. "Act natural. Or, uh, artificial, actually."

Lloyd keeps his walk as stiff and robotic as he can, and the three of them step into line. Lloyd isn't sure where the robots are going – does Emmet know? Hopefully he does.

The Kragle is visible, now. They're getting closer to it. Lloyd takes a deep breath and keeps walking, sticking close behind Emmet. The red lines of the Kragle's shields give everything an eerie glow.

The shields flicker out.

The robots all stop. Emmet bumps into the one in front of him. "Sorry," he says in a distinctly non-robotic voice. Wyldstyle and Lloyd flinch.

To their relief, the robot doesn't notice, focusing instead on the disabled shields with all the others. "What happened?" someone asks.

"The shields were disabled!" someone else says.

"It could have been a glitch," says the robot Emmet bumped into. "It happens all the time. That's why Business is Kragling us with the rest of the world, remember? Too many glitches."

The other robots murmur agreement. "The assembly line made a uni-cat-bot earlier, too," someone adds.

"Someone has to go down there and reenable them," says another robot.

Lloyd panics. "I will do it," he says in as robotic a voice he can muster.

Every robot turns to look at him.

"Who are you?"

"You don't look familiar."

"Are you another glitch?"

"Uh," says Lloyd, "I… am… a transfer from downstairs."

Emmet makes an incomprehensible gesture. Lloyd ignores him.

"If they're a transfer, then we can send them, so none of us have to do it," one of the robots says. It feels weird, to be referred to with they pronouns. Lloyd kind of assumed all the robots were guys. It's weird to think of them as nonbinary; it humanizes them in a way Lloyd isn't comfortable with.

"Good idea!"

The voice is familiar – and it's not a robot. Lloyd turns to see the smiling face of Good Cop as he walks into the room. "But just to be sure," he says, wringing his hands together, "I'll go with them. We've had all sorts of glitches, lately! Sending just one robot wouldn't be safe."

There's no room to argue. Good Cop grabs Lloyd's arm and starts pulling him away. "Keep a close eye on the Kragle, now!" he says cheerfully. "Good luck, buddies!"

Lloyd catches sight of the panic in Emmet and Wyldstyle's eyes, then the door closes behind them.

* * *

"Do you have any twos?" Wonder Woman asks, holding her cards in front of her.

"Arr, go fish." Metalbeard squints at his own cards, held in his massive hand. "Be ye having any fives?"

"Shoot. Yeah, here you go."

"Wait – what rules be we playing by?"

Wonder Woman nods at the robot next to them. "We're not taking another turn after you get a match, so it's their turn, now."

The robot beeps in affirmation. "Do you have any kings?" they ask Metalbeard, who groans and hands the card over.

* * *

Lloyd's heart is pounding. Good Cop isn't saying anything, just dragging him down the hall. Eventually, he stops at a door, enters a passcode with his free hand, and pushes it open.

"Here we go!" he says cheerfully. "We shouldn't be bothered in here."

The room looks like an office. One side of the desk is covered in papers and empty energy drink cans, while the other is neatly organized. Good Cop lets go of Lloyd, who kicks him and tries to run.

He doesn't reach the door before he's grabbed again. "Don't be stupid," Bad Cop's voice growls. "Do you really think you're going to get anywhere like that? Sit down – and take that disguise off."

There's no Heidi or Brett to save him this time, Lloyd thinks. He doesn't have the other ninja, either. He's all alone.

Lloyd twists in Bad Cop's grip and tries to punch him.

"Stop squirming!" Bad Cop pulls him away from the door and sits him down in a chair. "Do I have to tie you up? Look, I just want to ask you some questions."

"Yeah right," says Lloyd. "You're the bad guys!"

Bad Cop's eyes are hidden behind his shades, but Lloyd gets the distinct impression he's rolling them. "Yeah, we're well aware of that. Look, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way, and no one's gonna be happy about the hard way."

Lloyd tries to pull away again.

Bad Cop sighs. "Listen," he says. "I'm not planning to hurt you. Just answer me honestly: where are our parents?"

Lloyd stiffens. Bad Cop continues. "We didn't find them in Cloud Cuckooland," he says, "but you got out, so they must've gotten out too. What happened to them?"

"They're fine," Lloyd says. "Will you let me go now?"

"Where are they?"

"I'm not telling!"

"So you know!" Bad Cop tightens his grip. Lloyd yelps and leans his weight away. "Where are they, Garmadon?"

"Don't call me that! My name's Lloyd!"

Bad Cop's phone rings, startling them both. Bad Cop pulls Lloyd away from the door and grabs the phone with his free hand. "Bad Cop speaking," he says.

The cheery voice on the other end, loud enough for him to hear, makes Lloyd's blood run cold.

"Bad Cop, you know I have security cameras on your office, right?"

* * *

"Ye think someone will be coming to get us soon?" Metalbeard says, glancing at the door after they've gone through the deck a third time. "Feels like it's been a while!"

Wonder Woman shrugs. "I'm pretty sure everything's going fine. No news is good news, right?"

"I have not received any emergency orders," says the Octan bot. "I think you're good for now."

"Great. Ready for another round?"

* * *

Brett, Heidi, and Vitruvius are stationed as lookouts. Brett wonders if it's because the others want them out of the way – but that's not fair to Vitruvius, he's a Master Builder, and he's certainly capable of helping the others. Brett just hopes he and Heidi will be capable, too.

They better be, because Vitruvius has left the crossroads Emmet instructed them to keep an eye on, and Brett and Heidi don't know what to do but follow.

"Are you sure we could be going this way?" Brett whispers.

"I have a feeling we'll be of more use down… this way." Vitruvius points at a wall. Heidi and Brett exchange a nervous glance.

It turns out the next turn takes them approximately in the direction he had pointed in, so maybe there was no reason to worry. Not about that, anyway. He already has so many other reasons to worry; no sense in adding another one to the list.

The halls are empty. Brett wonders if that means something.

"Do you know what we should be looking out for?" he asks Vitruvius.

"I'm trusting my instincts," Vitruvius responds. "Sometimes, you need to go with your gut."

Brett's gut feels like it's tied in knots. "Okay," he says, as if he understands.

He reaches his hand back behind him, hoping for Heidi to take it without using words – he desperately needs his wife's comfort, in this terrifying situation.

He doesn't feel anything. Brett looks over his shoulder.

Heidi isn't there.

* * *

They're on their fifth game of Go Fish when the Octan bot's screen face lights up with an exclamation point.

"That be not good," says Metalbeard.

"Receiving orders from Lord Business," the bot says. "We are to bring all intruders to the Think Tank at once."

"Right," says Wonder Woman. "Hey, just out of curiosity, when was your last backup?"

* * *

"Sorry I'm late," Batman says, putting his phone away. "What the plan again?"

Metalbeard's ship is empty.

"Oh, come _on_ –"


End file.
